Abhishek Bachchan, who was in Indore recently, spoke about how he feels that there's scope for him to improve and evolve as an actor. DCFC research felt that the interview had broken links and it was not complete. Therefore, DCFC reporter spoke with the security guard, PK Bansal of TOI and got the unedited version of the interview. We for our readers would like to publish that unedited version which shows that even Junior Bachchan thinks himself as an ordinary man like his Papa and is very humble to accept that. Please see edited version of the interview.
Interviewer: Have you ever been to Indore before?
AB Baby: I used to come to Bhopal to visit my grandmother, and Indore was one of the places where our flight used to land. My cousins were studying at Daly College in the city, so we used to come to Indore to meet them. I think the city is developing at a rapid rate.
But I didn't ask you about your cousins and your view about this city?
Oh really! I am sorry.
You just became a dad and you're already out and about for film promotions, is it hard to leave your family behind due to work commitments?
Yes, it is definitely something which cannot be explained. Fortunately, I don't have much work these days besides keeping Beti B and house clean. But sometimes these occasional incidences of acting related work affect my attention to the family and make me really disturbed. Now see I got immense publicity out of changing nappies of beti B which I couldn't get from my movies. I tried to convince Abbas Mustan that I should be at home, as Aish always seat on my head to take responsibility of Bitiya. Gosh! people who might have faced similar situations in any other profession would definitely understand the emotions that we go through.
So have you finally decided on a name for your little girl?
I will let you know once we finalise it. Actually, Aish is little bit of confused about the name. She suggested AA first to Papa and me and we thought that was good !dea but now as DCFC reported story that AAA would be fine and recession proof, she started thinking again and therefore the name is got delayed. Few people are also asking us to add first word of Aish's and my mummy's name. Let's see. We call her Bitiya as of now. Now stop questioning about Bitiya, a lot of things have already been disclosed by me and Papa and Aish just take me to ride because of that. So now I will talk about my long movie journey. It's been a long journey for you as an actor, and with a career that spans across almost 40 to 50 films.
What according to you is the hardest part of being an actor?
I hardly act but still I feel I am better than Retired Hurt Uday Chopra and John Abraham. Sometimes Papa tells me that he raised the bar of acting so high that I had to born in 1960s and should had compete with Rajendra Uncle (Famous actor Rajendra Kumar), as my expressions are better than him. I would have been a superstar that time. Still I would tell you what I feel that one of the hardest things in acting is the way you need to switch your emotions, I experimented that !dea in Maniratnam's Raavan which was quite appreciated by critics. See I give you an example, I invented different kind of smile in Raavan (please see the photo given above) and showed it to Maniratnam who gladly accepted it and told me that 'what an !dea Sirjee!'. I tell you if I give you a role where you need to smile and laugh, then you need to think of some of the happy moments of your life and then cast yourself into the mould of that character. That what I did in Raavan, I thought about my acting in movie Refugee and felt funny. However, if suddenly, the next shot is about serious stuff, where you require tears flowing from your eyes, you might have to remind yourself of some sad phase, or imagine yourself in that phase. This emotional jugglery which we face is perhaps the hardest thing to do. This time I recalled the event when Uday said that he was the better actor than me while we were filming for Dhoom, I immediately got emotional.
And there have been a lot of reports that you're quite the prankster on the sets...
Ha ha ha!... No no who told you! I am just an ordinary man like Papa and I don't do funny things like that. See, movie-making is serious business and seriously I don't get proper roles to do that. The director and the crew are already under a lot of pressure to give their best to the audience and therefore even if I make a bit of fun of them they totally ignore me. Therefore the best part, for me as an actor, is to try act well in the movies and make a jolly atmosphere with the co-stars on the sets. However, unfortunately those efforts failed drastically. Cracking jokes is a different thing which gives you some attention and that realized me later but I have never ever played a prank since last few days due to inattentive and serious public.
So how do you rate your movies and your performances?
Honestly speaking, I don't like my films, except Raavan which was perfect in every sense. When I watch them, I see a lot of scope for improvement in the areas of direction, script writing, songs, acting of my co-stars, editing, etc., so if I were to see any of my films, like "Dhoom", I might say... 'It would have been better if they offered me the roles of Hritik and John' or 'had it been if the film makers have kept away that irritating Uday ' and this is all about evolving.
Have you seen a change in the Indian audience over the years?
Yea there is a lot of change, as I said earlier Papa wanted me to born in 1960s when public digested every kind of bullshit made by actors. Now honestly, I tried many things to impress audience but they are not recognizing my acting skills. Some days back Aish suggested me to try my luck in Hollywood movies but when I missed to see Anil Uncle's act in Mission Impossible though I saw entire movie my perception changed and now I am thinking about trying my luck in Caribbean or African movies, even Sri Lanka is hot today, it is just like Bollywood was in 1960s.
Talking about Indian audience, I believe that the Indian audience is much more poetic in nature, as Papa used to tell me; they want to see something which they themselves do not have. It might be that they want to imagine themselves in that state. Most of the people are still from predominantly poor backgrounds, and they see the disparity between the rich and the poor, and the public loves the hero who can fight the rich. That was what throughout his life Papa did and that what I wanted to do but couldn't succeed in getting that kind of roles.
Are you also in the race to develop six-pack abs like your other male Bollywood counterparts?
(Laughs) Just because I don't show six-pack abs doesn't mean that I don't have them. (Editor of TOI hurriedly to another correspondent: Go and write another story, 'Abhishek has six-pack abs'). I cannot play Gurukant Desai with six-pack abs, and the tough cop who does not take any nonsense in "Dhoom" or "Dum Maaro Dum" cannot be someone who loves taking his shirt off and show his six-pack-abs.
I need a concrete reason to take my shirt off on screen and when I see a point in doing so, I will definitely be showing them in movies in which the actor needs to be half nude throughout film or in the movies where producer has become half nude because of taking me into his fimls (ha ha ha, just a joke). Ok Jokes apart, I would like to show my six-pack abs in movies like Aamir did in "Ghajini".
What do you think makes a film work?
It's the best joke of my life. How would I know? If I would have known it, I would have implemented that in my films. Still I try to give you examples of other films, one need to know what sort of people you need to cater to. Lets talk about "Delhi Belly". Aamir marketed the movie saying that, 'It is meant just for youngsters, those who have a problem can sit at home'.
Just then Junior Bachchan's phone rang "Oh Aish! Don't worry I will leave in sometime this TOI reporter is boring me… don't worry I will change the nappy when I will return home. Ok bye.."
