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| Edited By: Deepali Singh |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 23, 2019, 06:05 AM IST
When Zaheer Iqbal was around 17-18, he quit his BMS (Bachelor of Management Studies) course in order to go to Dubai to help set up his dad’s construction business. “In between, I got a call from my coordinator asking me to take part in an inter-college drama competition. But since I wasn’t a student anymore, I took re-admission in my college just for 10 days, so I could rehearse and be a part of the play. And then I quit again. That’s the kind of stuff I have done for acting,” he recalls with a laugh.
The ‘acting ka keeda’ bit Zaheer hard, right from his school days, and the newcomer, who is making his debut with Nitin Kakkar’s Notebook, tells us that he was always learning and doing different things to satisfy his curious nature. He started by helping his father in the latter’s construction business and till today, continues to do so. “There are a lot of approvals required before the construction of a building, and I like the process of going to the BMC for seeking the permissions, etc. I can’t handle monotony.
At one point, I have even owned Uber cabs! For me, work is work,” says the 30-year-old. The self-confessed people’s person was spotted at his sister’s sangeet a couple of years ago by Salman Khan, who is his father’s friend. And now, he is all set to debut in the superstar’s co-production. Zaheer tells us more about how the Universe conspired to make his dream come true...
I read 36 pages of The Secret and stopped because I said, ‘This is me’. I believe that what you put out there is what you get. While getting ready, I would often ask my friend, ‘How’s my hair looking? Is this shirt okay?’ and so on. He would get fed up and say, ‘Dude, who’s going to see whether your hair is in place or not?’ and I would tell him jokingly, ‘What if I’m at a party and Salman Khan or Shah Rukh Khan or Karan Johar walk in and say, ‘This boy’s got something, we should launch him’. I have said this repeatedly to him for seven-eight years and that’s exactly what happened. Salman bhai saw me dancing at my sister’s wedding and when I got off the stage, he said, ‘You should be an actor, that’s where you belong’. It’s like the Universe had conspired to do that.
He made me start working out with his trainer, which meant a month of hardcore exercise and diet, etc. Then he called me again and asked me to take my shirt off. He said, ‘Body toh tu bana lega, but now we need you to train in other aspects’. He took me to Sohail (Khan) bhai and that’s how I started assisting him on Jai Ho. I did that for a year, post which I got into gymnastics, dance classes, acting classes, martial arts, horse riding, trekking, etc. There was no stone left unturned in the way he trained me. It was like I was not training for one film, but to sustain myself in the industry.
It’s more than that. See, I’m a very filmi guy. I love the dhishoom dhishoom, song and dance, etc. Eventually, when you do those over-the-top films, you do them unapologetically. I wanted my first film to be a nice, content-based story, so that when it releases, people should say, ‘He acts well’. I didn’t want it to be a showreel or like an audition tape to show what all I can do. And that’s the compliment I got after the trailer, that it doesn’t look like it’s my debut movie.
She is such a good sport! I always tell her that it’s her best quality. She’s hardworking. Some actors, when they come from legacies like she does, walk in on the sets thinking, ‘Yeh toh mere khoon mein hai’. But it doesn’t work that way in acting. She didn’t have that attitude. She always wants to better herself and when you work with someone like that, it inspires you. We have been very honest with each other from day one. There is no formality at all. Both of us are sailing in the same boat. The only person who can understand what I’m feeling is her because she is going through exactly the same thing as me. So, that makes the connection much stronger.
