Nana Patekar’s death has brought renewed attention to an old interview in which the acclaimed actor spoke candidly about mortality—and explained why he had initially refused to play the iconic role of Natsamrat on stage.
Patekar reportedly died of cardiac arrest on Thursday morning in Goa. He was 74. Following news of his death, a video of the actor discussing Natsamrat resurfaced online, with social-media users drawing renewed attention to his comments about the actors who had previously portrayed the character on stage.
Patekar had eventually played Natsamrat in the 2016 Marathi film adaptation, earning widespread acclaim for his performance.
Why did Nana Patekar refuse to play Natsamrat on stage?
In the resurfaced video, Patekar discussed the reputation surrounding the stage production of Natsamrat, based on the celebrated Marathi play by V. V. Shirwadkar, popularly known as Kusumagraj.
Patekar said that several actors who had played the role before him had died of heart attacks.
That history influenced his decision when he was approached to perform the character on stage.
He explained that he had declined the stage role but was willing to take on the character for a film adaptation.
Patekar also described the difference between performing the role on stage and in cinema. According to him, an actor puts an enormous amount of himself into a theatrical performance, making the demands of the role particularly intense.
His comments helped fuel what fans and media reports have referred to as the “Natsamrat curse.”
But there is no established evidence that portraying the character causes heart disease or premature death. The connection is best understood as an anecdotal belief surrounding the play rather than a medical phenomenon.
Which actors did Patekar mention?
Patekar specifically referred to veteran actors Dr. Shriram Lagoo, Dutta Bhatt and Chandrakant Gokhale, who had portrayed Natsamrat on stage.
He spoke with considerable respect about their performances, saying that what he had done in the film was insignificant compared with the work of the original stage performers he had looked up to.
The remarks were not presented as a scientific explanation for their deaths. Rather, Patekar was describing why the history surrounding the role made him hesitant about taking it on as a theatrical performance.
What did Nana Patekar say about death?
Patekar had spoken openly about death long before his own passing.
In a 2023 interview with Aaj Tak, he discussed his own mortality in typically blunt terms, saying that he knew he would eventually require wood for his funeral pyre and jokingly describing it as his “final property.”
He also joked that wet wood should not be used because it would produce smoke and could make people mistakenly think they were crying because of his death.
The comments reflected a recurring theme in Patekar’s interviews: his willingness to discuss death without treating it as an unspeakable subject.
That makes the resurfaced Natsamrat video particularly striking following reports of his death. Still, the timing should not be confused with causation. His earlier remarks were made years before his reported cardiac arrest.
What is Natsamrat about?
Natsamrat is one of the most celebrated works in Marathi theater.
The play follows Ganpatrao Belwalkar, a veteran stage actor who retires after spending his life performing Shakespearean and Marathi roles. Away from the theater, however, he struggles with aging, family relationships, loneliness and the loss of the identity that once gave his life meaning.
The character is sometimes described as a Marathi equivalent of Shakespeare’s King Lear because both stories explore old age, family conflict, dignity and abandonment.
The role is notoriously demanding for an actor because much of the character’s emotional weight comes from confronting the loss of relevance and the passage of time.
That demanding reputation may help explain why Patekar’s comments about the role resonated so strongly with audiences.
Patekar eventually played Natsamrat in the 2016 film
Although he rejected the stage version, Patekar eventually accepted the challenge of playing Natsamrat on screen.
He starred in the 2016 Marathi film adaptation, directed by Mahesh Manjrekar. The film became an important entry in Patekar’s career and earned him major critical recognition.
His performance also demonstrated why he had been considered a natural fit for such a demanding role.
Cinema offered Patekar a different relationship with the character than live theater. A film performance could be captured, edited and preserved, rather than being recreated night after night before a live audience.
That distinction was central to Patekar’s own explanation.
In the resurfaced video, he essentially suggested that once an actor plays a role in cinema, the performance becomes permanent—an idea that now carries an unintended poignancy following his death.
Is there really a “Natsamrat curse”?
The answer is no—not based on any scientific evidence.
The deaths of actors associated with the role have contributed to the legend, but a sequence of tragic events does not establish a causal relationship.
Heart attacks can occur for many reasons, including underlying cardiovascular disease and other risk factors. An actor’s decision to perform an emotionally demanding role does not, by itself, establish a link to cardiac arrest.
The “curse” framing therefore belongs to theater folklore and popular discussion rather than medical science.
It is also worth remembering that Natsamrat is a story deeply concerned with mortality, aging and the loss of identity. Those themes can make real-life events involving actors associated with the play appear especially significant.
What happened to Nana Patekar?
According to reports, Patekar began feeling unwell at around 2:30 a.m. Thursday and was taken to a hospital approximately two hours later.
Doctors reportedly attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for about 45 minutes but were unable to revive him. He was declared dead at approximately 5:20 a.m.
Reports said his body was sent for a post-mortem examination before being handed over to his relatives.
His last rites were reportedly scheduled to take place at his farmhouse in Donje, near Pune, with full state honors.
The circumstances of his death make the resurfaced Natsamrat comments emotionally striking. But they should not obscure the distinction between coincidence and evidence.
Why the old video is resonating now
Patekar’s comments have resurfaced because they contain an unusual mixture of theater history, mortality and his own reflections on death.
He had previously acknowledged the reputation attached to Natsamrat and openly admitted that it influenced his decision to avoid the stage production. Yet he ultimately embraced the character for cinema and delivered one of the most memorable performances of his career.
His remarks about death also show that mortality was not a subject he avoided. He spoke about it with the same directness that characterized much of his public persona.
That makes the resurfaced footage feel almost prophetic to some viewers.
But it is important not to turn that feeling into a factual claim. Patekar’s earlier comments did not predict his death, nor do they establish that Natsamrat had anything to do with it.
The larger legacy of Natsamrat—and Patekar
The enduring fascination with Patekar’s Natsamrat performance ultimately says as much about the character as it does about the actor.
The play is fundamentally about what happens when a person who has spent a lifetime being celebrated is forced to confront a quieter existence. Its themes—aging, family, pride, loneliness and mortality—are universal.
Patekar’s performance brought those themes to a much wider audience through cinema.
Years after he first refused to perform the role on stage, he ultimately became one of the actors most closely associated with Natsamrat on screen.
The resurfaced video may have revived talk of a supposed curse, but Patekar’s own words point toward something more enduring: the idea that an actor’s work can outlive the person who performed it.
And in that sense, his 2016 portrayal of Natsamrat has achieved exactly what he once said cinema could offer a performance—it has been preserved.
TL;DR
- Nana Patekar reportedly died of cardiac arrest on Thursday morning.
- An old video has resurfaced in which he discussed refusing the stage role of Natsamrat.
- Patekar said actors who had previously played the role had died of heart attacks.
- He later played Natsamrat in the 2016 Marathi film adaptation.
- There is no scientific evidence that the role is cursed or causes heart attacks.
- Patekar had also spoken openly about his own mortality in a 2023 interview.
- The timing has renewed interest in his comments, but the connection remains coincidental rather than causal.
