In this part one of the two part series, Devansh Patel meets a man who is considered the lord of teenyboppers, a man who has redefined the art of acting and an actor who has nothing left to prove: Imran Khan.
James Dean and Marlon Brando
'As you're interviewing me, and this may sound spooky, but just above your shoulder is a James Dean picture framed. Now what I liked about him was that he was an awkward guy. He literally brought in a different style of acting, right from his first film East of Eden.
Back in the 50's, acting was very stylized, the dialogues were artificial and then there is one guy who does something weird. It's like seeing a maverick doing something completely out of the ordinary. That's a great feeling. He had a style of his own. If you watch Marlon Brando in The Street Car Named Desire, you'll get the same feel.
James Dean was raw. All the others were ripe. To see an actor doing that radical was surprising. To me, Dean and Brando were guys whom I watched a lot. They were men who never really combed their hair and still look charismatic. So you tend to imbibe things when you watch actors like them.'
Fans
'Somehow the presence of meeting your fans or audiences in public face to face gives your film that little push. So if I go to London or New York and a local photographer takes my picture, he feels better.
You are traveling the world and then doing phone interviews don't help. I like to meet journalists and fans in person. The audience feels that I am taking trouble to come to meet them.
They feel a little more of a connect that I am reaching out to them. If I have a hand shake with a fan, I am winning that persons heart permanently. If I am rude to my fan, I will lose him permanently and I'm sure about that.'
New Perspective
'A lot of the guys I hang out with are new generation of actors, like Ranbir Kapoor and Abhay Deol. I am very friendly with these guys and we tend to like the same kind of movies, talk in the same way. Same applies with my directors, like Soham Shah and Abbas Tyrewala. We have a similar thought process.
The grammar, meaning how a film is shot, how it is portrayed, how you act the scene, etc. has changed drastically. The way Soham will shoot it as a director is less theatrical. I'll give you a great example of my grandfather's film which I was watching. It's a steady cam shot. The hero is walking across with an important letter in his hand.
It slips out and falls down and the hero continues to walk. Then the light focuses on the letter and the camera zooms in and holds it for a couple of seconds. Imagine doing this today. That was the grammar in the 50's and that's the way the director used to communicate with his audience.
You had to underline the fact; the letter was important and had to be noticed. Today a crying scene need not show an actor cry. Today, the director will take a close up of my face and show my eyes moist. That's it.'
Style Statement
