I would have loved to be the fifth Beatle: Farhan

ROCKING ON: Farhan will also be acting in Fakir of Venice and Lucky By Chance.

        

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The theme of this season of To Catch a Star is Rising Talents. The show brings bright young actors, filmmakers, and technicians who stand out from the crowd by virtue of the sheer promise they exude. This season the show is dedicated to find out what makes this new genre of rising stars choose their craft and what makes them tick.

Rajeev Masand: My guest today is an accomplished director who recently made a detour into acting and walked away with rave reviews. In the months ahead, he will be working both as an actor and a director but today we are going to talk to Farhan Akhtar strictly about acting.

Are you surprised by all the responses to your performance in Rock On?

Farhan Akhtar: Pleasantly, yes. The thing is that my harshest critics normally are my dad, Shabana, my mom, my sister, Baba, Tanvi Azmi and a couple of other people like that. And I make sure whether as a director and now as an actor, I always show them my work first. And when they turned around and told me that my performance is good, well done and we are very surprised, we didn't expect it to be the way it was. After that I really felt confident about other people watching it.

The only other occasion that I was a bit nervous was when Naseer (Naseeruddin Shah) came to watch the movie. I am a tremendous fan of his talent, and I just really wanted to know what he thought about the performance of course, and the movie as well.

Rajeev Masand: And what did he say?

Farhan Akhtar: He liked it. He thought the performance was really well etched. He didn’t feel that it was a first time performance. He felt that it was a mature performance. I quite enjoyed hearing that from him.

Rajeev Masand: Tell me, you are trained to be a director, when you watch your own performance, is it sort of awkward, are you self conscious?

Farhan Akhtar: It took a while to get used to seeing myself and even more to hear myself, which is worse I think. But as a director, it is difficult to be that objective because in the process of doing it, you made choices that you thought you were right for that emotion and for that moment and for the dialogue.

So, it is very difficult to sit back and say, it is wrong. I can’t be that objective. I can be about other peoples’ performances in the film. For me, Arjun’s (Arjun Rampal) performance cwas something that surprised me. When I saw it, I called him up and told him that it is probably your best performance till date. Apart from that, Shahana’s and Purab’s performances were standout performances.

Rajeev Masand: Apparently, you said that your parents were very surprised, shocked almost when you announced that you wanted to be a director a couple of years ago. They were always expecting you to be an actor.

Farhan Akhtar: Yes, given my interest in movies, my constant impersonation of dialogue from other people, I think it just kind of led them to believe that I would be an actor. Also, at one point I used to lie, make of lots of stories and then I really had to be really good at maintaining that façade. So, they were quite convinced that it would be that. So, dad was quite shocked. I was living with mom, so she new that I was writing a script.

It wasn’t that much of a surprise for her, but with dad it was a bit of a surprise when I went to him and said that I have written this script and I have spoken to Aamir and he was saying what’s going on. Please tell me what’s happening. Yes, they did think that I was becoming an actor.

Rajeev Masand: Who were the actors you mimicked in the mirror when you were growing up?

Farhan Akhtar: The one that I mimicked the most was Robert De Niro. Still I am a huge fan of his. I look forward to his movies. There is one coming up with Al Pacino, what more could anybody ask. It was him (De Niro) that I mimicked the most.