Exclusive: Abhishek, the rising son

Mumbai: He is the rising star of Hindi Cinema and a performer with immense potential. Say hello to the young and restless Abhishek Bachchan.

Rajeev Masand: Your new film Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna is one that everyone is talking about and your performance in the film is being discussed animatedly. I think it is safe to say that your performance in the film is one that most people have enjoyed immensely.

Your character portrays an ideal man and perhaps an ideal husband. He is one who loves his wife unconditionally, is betrayed by her and later forgives her and embraces her as a friend.

In your opinion, is it easy to forgive to someone who has broken your heart?

Abhishek Bachchan: I think it is. I have been asked this question several times during the making of this film that would be logical to love someone so dementedly that even being betrayed by her, you are ready to forgive and forget. It seemed logical to me because forgiveness is in the very grain of humanity.

Rajeev Masand: Success has come to you after a lot of hard work and perhaps after a spate of failures. Do you cherish it much more because it did not come to you overnight and perhaps all that easily?

Abhishek Bachchan: I don’t know how to react to all this success because I have not tasted it before. People ask me how does it feel to be that successful.

I only ask them, "Have you forgotten who I live with? " That is my standard of success. Everybody cherishes his success and so do I.

When I had started my career as an actor with J P Dutta, I was not ready for it. I was this 21-year-old kid, excited to get the chance to fulfill my dream of becoming an actor.

I trusted JP Dutta blindly and followed what he said. Whatever appreciation I got for my work was because of him.

I have been shooting for Dhoom II with my friends Hrithik (Roshan) and Uday (Chopra) whom I have grown up with. We often discuss our work and I have been sitting with Hrithik and talking about it.

I was telling him about the time when I used to finish a scene and used to get excited that thankfully I did manage to remember the dialogues.

Whenever I would look at the script and see how many times my name has appeared on it, I used to panic to see so many dialogues to remember and so many scenes to complete.

My focus would not be on giving a performance or to best deliver a line, but it was simply to finish the work and meet the requirement. I think, that is the first indication that tells that you are not prepared and perhaps not even capable enough to do your job.

So, I set about working on it. Most of the reviews and most of them by you actually, were full of criticism about me.

I was told that I have bad hair, bad makeup, no dialogue delivery, couldn’t dance and so on. These were the things that were said about me. But I did not go defensive about them. I thought perhaps I need to work on my dialogue delivery, hair, make up and all those areas.

Whereas actors tend to take criticism in a negative way, I took it very seriously in a positive way. If you come to my room you will find three of your reviews on my wall.

But I highlighted portions where my performance has been criticized and decided to work upon it. My goal was to make sure that next time when someone writes a review about me; there should be a mention that I have improved.

Rajeev Masand: Dhoom was perhaps the turning point in your career as it was your first ‘undisputed’ hit film. How do raise the ante for its sequel?

Abhishek Bachchan: By hiring the services of Bipasha Basu, Aishwarya Rai and Hrithik Roshan!

Just kidding! I think the exciting thing about doing a sequel is if the actors have already been there in the prequel, you don’t have to do much. Uday and myself knew everything about the characters.

It’s the same unit and our chemistry and rapport did help. But the tension is about making it more interesting and taking that one step further.

I don’t want to sound pompous but Dhoom II is just bigger and better. One reason is because it has a bigger star caste. Our aim was to make a bigger action film, which is more entertaining, and take it to a higher level. So, I hope we achieve that with this film.

Rajeev Masand: Hrithik Roshan and you are friends of course, but the fact is that you are also contemporaries and rivals at the same time.

When you are signing a film with other actors in it, what do you look for apart from your own role in it? Is it really important to know what the other actor is doing in that film?

Abhishek Bachchan: It never has important been for me. I rightly or wrongly have always believed in the people that I have worked with.

I truly believe that whatever success I have achieved today has a lot to do with somebody like Hrithik who has called me once in a while and told me things like, ‘Hey! You are looking bit fat in this, you need to work at this portion, your visual appeal is important’ and things like that.

He is very giving with his advice and he has pushed me to improve. I owe a lot to him.

Rajeev Masand: Is it rare to find such generous co-actors?

Abhishek Bachchan: I have never had a problem there. In fact I have been very lucky to always get supportive and protective co-actors to work with. They always felt sorry for me for I was so bad. They always thought, "poor chap. He is the weakest link. Let’s just help him out."

Rajeev Masand: Were you always destined to be an actor?

Abhishek Bachchan: Can’t say if I was destined to, but yes, I always wanted to be an actor.

Rajeev Masand: Do you often wonder what you would have been doing, had you not become an actor?

Abhishek Bachchan: I don’t wonder, but perhaps I could have been a struggling actor. I would have been ‘pounding the pavement’ (as you call in actor’s lingo), outside producers’ office asking them for some work.

Abhishek says, he has always shared a special bond with father Amitabh Bachchan.

Rajeev Masand: But you could not have been anywhere else but in films, isn’t it?

Abhishek Bachchan: Yes, definitely. No doubts about it.

Rajeev Masand: You worked in Mani Ratnam’s ‘Yuva’ which people say has been your best performance so far. Now that you are again working with him in ‘Guru’, playing a character whose span from a young man to an elderly person has been covered as a journey, what else is special that you find in it?

Abhishek Bachchan: Mani Ratnam is indeed the most special aspect of Guru. When he is directing a film, an actor doesn’t need to ask for anything else.

I signed Yuva without even hearing its script. It was weird.

I knew Mani from the days when he made Bombay because ABCL Ltd then had distributed the film. Shad (Ali) arranged my meeting with him and there he asked me if I would be interested in working with him. I almost fell off my chair. Here I was sitting in front of Mani Ratnam and it he who was asking me, whether I wanted to work with him or not. I was almost going to ask him, “Do I have to pay you for giving me a role in your film?”

Getting the chance to work with him for a second time is truly a blessing, because you have got over with the fear of working with ‘ Mr Mani Ratnam’ and have become more comfortable with him. To add to it, Aishwarya (Rai) who started her career with Mani is also a part of the film. Everybody knew each other, so it was very comfortable.

Any role that Mani gives you is assured to be interesting, intriguing and very tough.

Guru has been a very tough film and challenging to do. I hope it turns rewarding, more so for Mani because he has worked very hard on it. He is truly a genius and deserves every bit of the credit that he gets.


Rajeev Masand: Is it true that Guru is inspired by the real life story of Dhiru Bhai Ambani?

Abhishek Bachchan: I don’t think I can rightfully comment on this because Mani would be answer this question. But I’m sure Mani has been inspired my many persons. I don’t think it is particularly based on any body’s life.

Many people have inspired Mani. He is somebody who is very ‘worldly wise’ and like most directors he too derives inspiration from different things. I think it could be an amalgamation of many inspirational stories. I’m sure he never wants to convey that such-and-such film is depicting so-and-so’s life.

Rajeev Masand: There is one question that I asked your father and now I’m asking you. Shah Rukh Khan is playing ‘Don’ in the remake of the yesteryear’s blockbuster hit film. So are Salman Khan and his brothers in a remake of Amar, Akbar, Anthony. Tell me if you have the choice to remake one of your dad’s films, which one would it be?

By the way, your father said Deewar could be the one fit for you.

Abhishek Bachchan: That’s really tough. Actually all of them are so great that they all could be remade. Most of the ones that I have wanted to be a part of have already been made.

But I think Kalia is one film that I would like to be remade with me playing the lead because I loved that film as a kid.

I can’t choose a film that needs to be remade but I can definitely tell one film that I would not want to be remade.

Rajeev Masand: Which one is that?

Abhishek Bachchan: I think Black is one film I would never want to be remade because I would not be able to match up to that level of acting.

Kalia and Kala Pathar are some of the films that I have seen inactively as a child. I used to see my dad beating up bad guys in these films. I used to get excited and beat up my sister enacting him.

These films would be fun to do but doing Black would be traumatic.

I think I would want to act in a remake of one of my dad’s film because I want to go through the enjoyment of just doing it. It would be fun to live a character ‘on-camera’ that I have seen and enacted as a child. I would also like to do it more on an emotional basis.

Rajeev Masand: As an actor, you have been working for eight-years now. I’m sure you must have known your strengths and weaknesses by now. What would you consider as your strength?

Abhishek Bachchan: I have a lot of good friends in the industry who continuously are willing to work with me. That’s lot of strength for me, seriously.

Rajeev Masand: How do you react to the tag of ‘most eligible bachelor’ being attached to you?

Abhishek Bachchan: That’s really embarrassing. I would much rather they call me a successful actor. I’m not complaining, as long as they look upon me favourably. But I would much rather that I’d be known for my work.

Rajeev Masand: Well, are you uncomfortable with all the attention that is being paid to your ‘romantic life’?

Abhishek Bachchan: Not really. It’s part and parcel of your job. When you become an actor, you must know that you are a ‘public property’. That’s fair enough, but what you make of your public image is up to you.

I keep my private life private because I don’t want people to know what pajamas I go to bed in, on what side of the bed I sleep, what I say to my dad or how I talk to my mother when I order my lunch. That is something personal and I want to keep it just to myself.

We conduct our lives on a public stage but please I would request people to leave ‘this’ bit to us so that we can keep our sanity. Am I uncomfortable? I would say no. Because I know that an actor’s life comes under immense scrutiny and observation.

If you don’t like it then you shouldn’t become an actor. If you want to be there, then you must know how to deal with it.

Rajeev Masand: With the growing interest, do you think that you have to hide increasingly?

Abhishek Bachchan: No. I have always led my life openly. My life is like an open book. As long as my family and loved ones know what’s going on in my life, nothing really matters to me. There is nothing worth hiding. I am not doing anything wrong.

Rajeev Masand:Are you amused by all the stories that you read everyday. Things have been said like horoscopes being matched, impending marriage and so on. Literally, it’s become a case when almost everyday there is a new story about your personal life.

Abhishek Bachchan: It makes some very interesting reading. I am impressed with the people who write them. Their creativity and power of imagination is truly incredible. I am actually looking for all such people to hire them as scriptwriters. They are brilliant in what they do.

Rajeev Masand: Do all these stories create any kind of awkwardness when you meet your co-stars that you have been linked with?

Abhishek Bachchan: No not at all. It’s not given all that importance, honestly. We are actors and know that this happens on a daily basis. It doesn’t affect us at all. You become immune to it.

If I meet a female co-star of mine who they have recently ‘married’ me off to or ‘divorced’ me with, or somebody I have ‘cheated’ upon or whatever of the sort, I don’t even talk about it. I think our friendships are far stronger to be affected by something like that.

Like recently there was a story about how Shah Rukh Khan and my father are having this huge war and that my father allegedly has ‘forced’ Karan (Johar) to add a song of mine in Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna.

First and foremost, my dad and I are not the kind of people who would do something like that. Secondly, we are in no position to do that. Thirdly, it’s sad that people who write such lies when witness that we all are together, must have been feeling very stupid and little.

Shah Rukh is very close to our family. He is somebody I have got to know through my father and mother. My mother is immensely close to him and he is a wonderful person.

When it comes to Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna I would like to state that I have no false illusions of a grandeur.

Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna’s lead hero is Shah Rukh. I am just the supporting lead and perhaps the third main lead in the film.

I am not presumptuous or precarious enough to think of myself as equal to Shah Rukh yesterday, today or tomorrow. Shah Rukh is the biggest star that we have in the country. I think he is a fantastic person to look up to as an idol.

And I really don’t have the power to convince Karan to add a song of mine in his film. I am just happy being a part of the supportive caste in his film. In fact I am just happy to be a part of the film.

Rajeev Masand: Putting all the rumours and the controversies aside, being young, successful and popular, does the question about your marriage comes up in the family? It’s only natural for them to raise such a question, isn’t it? Is that something that they are waiting for?

Abhishek Bachchan: No, never thankfully. My parents have not been the sorts to pressurize me on something like that.

They have never been that narrow-minded to raise such a question. They know the kind of life actors’ lead and they respect that. They have always been very broad-minded and would not impose themselves upon me ever.

Even in terms of marriage, they have left it upon me to decide. They always say, "let us know when you are ready and we will be fine with it."

Rajeev Masand: So when do you think you would be ‘ready’ for marriage?

Abhishek Bachchan: Not in the near future at least. I have just started my career and there is a lot that needs to be done.

I think there is a lot to achieve before one can settle down in life. But then again, you may never know. Tomorrow you might just turn around and walk into someone wonderful and say, "Wow, this is it."

Rajeev Masand: Finally, what is the best thing about being a movie star?

Abhishek Bachchan: The love that you get. You can’t really explain it. Anywhere you go, you have an audience that comes up to you to shake hands with you.

You don’t even know them but they are truly excited to see you. It’s an emotion that is hard to explain. It’s just an amazing experience.

And, secondly, I get to wake up every morning and live my dream. I can’t think of a better job.

Abhishek Bachchan: Well, best of luck. Let’s hope you can always live your dream. We will be looking forward to lots more exciting movies from you.

Abhishek Bachchan: Thankyou.

Source: IBNlive