Salman Khan: I don’t want to be a villain!

Nowhere is the difference between black and white as marked as when it comes to the villain and hero in the Hindi film. The hero can’t do anything wrong and all the baddie’s actions are aimed at making the viewer hate him. 

Somewhere in the 90s, (see box) the Hindi film hero went into the grey area, and actors began to celebrate. Finally, here was a chance to experiment. And display their versatility. 

Every actor wants to play an anti-hero at some point. Not Salman Khan. He says, “I don’t like that genre at all. I don’t want to be a villain. I believe in entertaining the audience. I like playing the hero, a good man who’s memory people carry back home.”

It is important to him to play a good character on screen, because he believes that young fans emulate the actions of their screen idols. He jokes, “If I cannot play it in real life, at least I can play such a man on screen. That’s what I want to do.”

Salman adds that he wants his fans to walk home from the theatre with smiles on their faces, “I want to give the youth stories, or at least one scene in the film, that in some way makes them strong, become men and gladiators in real life. That subconscious training is almost like an education.”