A sense of detached calm is what Irrfan Khan radiates as he sits down to chat about his upcoming thriller, Madaari . Sunglasses, a loosely buttoned blue shirt and messily tied hair are on the opposite end of the spectrum from his scruffy-looking kidnapper avatar in the film, which Irrfan says he picked because it deals with questions about accountability.
“The film is based on a real incident, and explores the accountability of the system we have in place; whether we have any accountability at all. There are a lot of movies being written that reflect life, and audiences are embracing them,” he says, adding that the many looks his character is seen sporting in the trailer reflect the circumstances he goes through in the film. “The protagonist goes through a phase where he has to make a choice, and he does not want to be recognised. So the different looks are used for that reason in the story.”
On the shooting experience, he explains, “There was a particularly emotional scene that I kept putting off till the end of the shoot, and when I did it, I asked the crew not to rehearse the shot and just have the camera follow me around as I went through it.”
Would he call himself a ‘director's actor’? “Of course not. We discuss these things. There is no point in being a puppet, you are chosen because you bring in your inputs, your personality and your way of looking at the character.”
Irrfan, who will be soon be sharing screen space with Tom Hanks in his next Hollywood venture Inferno , directed by Ron Howard based on Dan Brown's bestselling book, says that the approach to filmmaking in Hollywood is very different from Bollywood. “It is a lot more about your behaviour on screen and less about dialogue delivery. In Hollywood, there is a little more nuance, and what you say without saying anything is more important,” he says.
Beyond Inferno , he will also be seen in Anup Singh's The Song Of Scorpions . And though he does not have any fun collaborations, like the 'Bollywood Party Song' video he did with AIB, on the anvil, he says he is open to producing digital content. “Indian audiences no longer get their content only through television and cinema, and there is still not enough being done on the digital medium. So I'd love to do more work for digital.”
