(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) After a gap of four years Aamir Khan returned to Dubai for a press junket with Anushka Sharma director Rajkumar Hirani and producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra to promote his latest film PK which releases worldwide this Friday
Rajkumar Hirani Anushka Sharma Aamir Khan and Vidhu Vinod Chopra promote PK in Dubai
Man with the magic touch
He is a director who landed in Bollywood out of nowhere and became the most loved man in the industry. Karan Johar calls himself a big Hirani fan but also admits that he is jealous of the fact that Hirani comes up with brilliant ideas for socially relevant movies.When the director collected his team of actors and crew for PK he requested each of them to keep the story of his film extremely confidential. “Every crew and cast member love Raju” Aamir confided “and so we all were really careful because it was Raju’s request.”So what influences this director who ends up touching millions of lives through his films “Every film is a labour of love so we want it to be appreciated. When we pick up our team we make sure that they are good human beings first even if they are slightly inferior in their work I prefer to have a happy team.”Raju said he is under a lot of pressure right now because people have humongous expectation from him. “I had no pressure when my first film Munnabhai MBBS was released. I was so happy that I made my first film in fact I was so relaxed that my family and friends had seen it that I went to sleep on the day of release. In fact someone woke me up and said ‘Lets go and see people’s reaction.’ So I was like ‘Ok lets go.’ After that I started taking pressure. I thought that Lage Raho Munnabhai was a bad film. When 3 Idiots happened I thought this is the worst film that anyone has ever made. This time I am a bit confident because this is a very unique story. I am nervous but Aamir is more nervous.”
Bollywood’s bubbly sweetheartAnushka Sharma has been in the industry for only six years but has steadily proved herself to be one of the most exciting and successful leading ladies in Bollywood. With her forthcoming film NH10 she turns producer.
Not to mention prestigious projects like Anurag Kashyap’s Bombay Velvet and Zoya Akhtar’s Dil Dhadakne Do that promise to take her career to a new high. Right now the 26-year-old is all pumped to be working with her childhood hero Aamir Khan. On Monday night the actress spoke to us about her journey with PK.
“With Aamir I have learnt the clarity and intelligence of acting. I was moved by most of Aamir’s films when I was young. Sometimes I would just be on set and watch him act and then it would suddenly hit me that “Oh s**t he is Aamir Khan.”
Anushka sounded quite candid when she told us how the director told her to tone down her expressions while acting in the film. “Right from the beginning Raju told me that this is how I want your character to be. He told me: ‘I really like the way you act but there is something that you do with your face and nose let’s avoid that.’ There was excessive movement of eyes and face he told me to cut that down. That helped me so much because nobody has ever told me that before. I am not a trained actor so someone had to tell me that and he did. Then I started to breathe more. I feel there is a bit of stability and calmness in my character.”
The actress went on “I feel like when you play a character like mine I just have to be real. Not that Aamir’s character is not real his character is..umm.” Suddenly Aamir and Raju get tensed as to whether the actress will reveal some much guarded details of PK. Aamir joked “Be careful.”
The talkative actress ended up laughing saying “It will be me who will end up revealing the spoiler.”
The other side of Aamir
It is very rare for a superstar to reveal his human side to the general public. We were very surprised to hear that Mr. Perfectionist of Bollywood Aamir Khan cries grieves and gets emotional just like us. The actor spoke in detail about how he copes with pressure when his film is about to release “I break into pieces and cannot manage the pressure. I lose my sleep my appetite goes for a toss and I get extremely emotional and cry over small things. I react a lot so my family usually avoids me during this time.”
The actor also spoke about the art of dealing with failure: “Failures are a very important part of my life. I owe a huge part of my success to all my failures. I am not scared of failure anymore. But when a film of mine does not do well it is hugely disappointing to me. I am an emotional person; I get upset I cry. I go into grief.
It is very important to grieve a loss whether it is of a human being or something else important in life. When you feel sad it is important to grieve and then let it go. I never suppress it because then it comes out in some other way. It hurts when a film fails because I am attached to the film so much if the film was not close to me I would never do that film. It is an important process but I hope it does not happen this time. I am very nervous right now.”
While the actor did not reveal much about the character he plays in PK he stressed on the process of getting into the skin of this character. “One of the big challenges in PK was the language because my character speaks Bhojpuri throughout the film. It took me four months to learn the language. I learnt it phonetically.” The actor explained the reason behind the title: “Like Raju’s other films this is a drama and at the heart of the film what he is trying to say is something very important. In today’s age it is a very important message.
He always uses humour as a vehicle and humour is a very important part of this film as well. Raju makes you laugh but at the end of what he is saying is something fundamentally very important. It is one of the most unusual characters that he has ever created. The character PK is very childlike and wherever he goes people think that he is drunk and hence they all call him PK (drunk). So he hears everyone saying “PK aaya hai kya” (Are you drunk) and then he thinks his name is PK. That’s how the name comes about.”
And who can forget the naked poster of the film - the actor spoke about how vulgarity lies in the eye of the beholder. “That naked poster is very much part of the scene in the film. But perhaps if a few years ago someone had asked me to do a scene where I am not wearing any clothes I would have been uncomfortable. Our conditioning is such that we would feel uncomfortable but when I read the script I found it very organic and natural I did not find it awkward. We all believe that the naked picture represents the movie we made. Also vulgarity does not have anything to do with clothes even if we are fully clothed we can still be vulgar. Even babies are born without clothes and there is no vulgarity in that.”