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2 min readChennaiFeb 7, 2026 09:03 PM IST
Bollywood veteran couple Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah are both alumni of the prestigious National School of Drama (NSD). The institute has many other renowned alumni, including Om Puri, Irrfan Khan, Anupam Kher, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Pankaj Tripathi, Neena Gupta, Piyush Mishra, and others. However, in a recent interaction, Naseeruddin and Ratna admitted that they did not learn acting from the institute.
Speaking to Curtain Call With Aahana Kumra, Naseeruddin said, “There was no acting teacher worth the name at NSD when I was there.” He shared how one teacher at the institute taught him the discipline of acting, but no one taught him about the craft during his time there. “But as far as the craft of the work itself, apart from gaining experience in acting over several plays over the years, I didn’t learn anything about acting while I was at NSD,” he added.
Ratna had a similar experience. She said, “Ditto, when I went to NSD, seven years later after he had passed out, even till then they had not figured out an acting teacher worth anything.” Naseer chimed in, “They still haven’t.”
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Naseeruddin also spoke about why this is the reason he keeps going back to NSD to take acting classes and help students. He shared that this also makes him learn more about the craft. “Only the failures come back to teach at NSD. That is why I considered it my responsibility to help these kids. I don’t consider myself as a know it at all, but since I started working with students, I have learnt more about acting than what I have learnt in the 30-40 years of my life.”
In a recent column for The Indian Express, Naseeruddin said that he was disinvited from a Mumbai University event. He also accused the university of not apologising to him and alleged that they went on to announce that he had refused to appear at the event. His column led to a widespread debate.
