Salman Khan has had a terribly busy few days. As he promotes his upcoming release Tubelight, he’s also making appearances for his pet project, the Being Human foundation. Throw in a few courtesy selfies with the fans in between media appearances, and you can see why Salman seems a little drained from all the frenzied appointments he has to keep up. But, as he settles down, he lends a keen ear to questions, and is visibly excited to talk about Tubelight. After all, it is his own production, and a movie close to his heart. Excerpts:
Was it challenging for you to play your part in Tubelight?
It’s difficult to play a character like this — full of innocence. And, I’ve never played anything like this before. While growing up, we all may have had shades of this character. I didn’t want to look fake, and so, justifying this role wasn’t easy at all. Growing up, we have friends and with them, there’s a childlike quality that makes you do things you don’t as adults.
How comfortable was it to work with Sohail Khan, as his reel life brother?
Had some other star stepped into this project, the collection would grow more and would get more eyeballs. Sohail is doing well for himself, but as an actor, he’s not made a mark as he was more driven towards direction. When this role came to us, we thought we would ask one of our star friends to do it. But that would mean my job would increase, because as it is, I’m playing a character I’ve not done before, and it may look fake on film. So we realised there was nothing better than two brothers playing siblings on screen. Even Kabir (Khan, director) realised that.
Are you interested in direction too, like your brothers Sohail and Arbaaz Khan?
I didn’t get work as a director back in the early days. That’s when I entered into the field of acting. Now that this is going well, I only want to concentrate on this.
The Khan family has always come across as a close knit one. How do you keep bonded in today’s day and age when people prefer nuclear families?
Touch wood! My family is less Khan than any other. My nana is from Jammu, and my nani is a Maharashtrian. Helen aunty is catholic, Malaika is a Malayali catholic, and Seema is Punjabi, even though right now we’re living together, Sohail, Arbaaz, Atul, Arpita have their own families and they live 30 seconds away from home. But whenever you say ‘ghar aa jao (come home)’ it always means Galaxy Heights (home to the Khans). You don’t need to explain anything. We all meet every single day.
Do you usually gauge the difference between people trying to please you to get a break and a genuine talent? Have you burnt your fingers in terms of launching the wrong people?
Yes. Sometimes I get it a little late, but I do understand that. Sometimes, I understand it much later and sometimes, I’ve misunderstood the person. So either way, you get to know eventually. Till the time I don’t see something in the person, no matter how much you try to please me, I will not launch you because I don’t see it. I have to be able to go to that person and say ‘Do you want to work with me’. Then there’s TV. It’s big and it has saved so many actors’ lives when they had no work in the film industry.
Do you feel that friendships like Salim (Salman’s father) and Javed’s don’t exist anymore? Even when they separated, it was done so gracefully.
At that point of time, the press was not like the press that is today. There were two or three magazines and newspapers didn’t carry any news like this. It was simple, and my father has great respect for Javed saab. So it was just the partnership that ended. Farhan and Zoya have grown up with us. We’re still close to them. We have that connect. Today, people are competing with each other so much, that everyone wants something more. Today, people are looking only for headlines.
