All the madness paid off: Abhishek Bachchan

Actor Abhishek Bachchan came by DNA and talked about  finding humour in silences and being a part of loud comedies. 

You’re getting great reviews for Bol Bachchan?
Thank God, thank God! All the madness paid off. Good fun, no?

Will you do more comedies now?
You know I enjoy it. But it also depends on the material because I have always maintained that comedy is the one and possibly the only genre which is least dependent on the actor. If I had an action film, a drama, a romance, or a tragedy, I can add a lot to the silences. When you have dialogues, your dialogues need to be so good that they speak for themselves. You know, like the dialogue, Main tumhara khoon pee jaoonga. I don’t need to perform that because the language is so brilliant and descriptive. Main tumhara khoon, just the way you say khoon, it’s almost visual. But it’s the silences where you get stuck. So in a drama, romance or an action film, your silences as an actor can add a lot.

How would you compare it with a, say, Charlie Chaplin comedy that has no dialogue?
But see, it is all written in. I mean Chaplin was known for his slapstick and physical comedy but all of that is rehearsed and thought out before. Can you imagine if he ran into a room and the villains are around, he is looking what to do and he slips! Now that’s written. As opposed to that, if none of that is written and you just come in and react, there’s nothing funny about it. if it’s not written, there’s very little you can just do by yourself.

You’ve said you will not do experimental films..
No, that’s not what I said, it was misconstrued. What I’ve realised in the last three years is, we are very myopic in our view towards the films we do. I want to do comedy…it might not be the right comedy for my audience at that point of time. I’ve done Bol Bachchan, which I label as physical comedy. My sense of comedy is very different, it’s very…dead-pan, you know, I like the off timing. If you see Dhoom and Bluffmaster has those one-liners which are actually very funny. You know it’s very droll almost, sarcastic. But in Hindi, sarcasm doesn’t translate very well. I think the Cohen brothers do black comedy wonderfully. But here no one’s going to understand it, they’ll be like Yeh kya hai? I don’t think today even if I did a Bluffmaster, actually quite a funny film, it’s funny because of the lines, the casualness with which its delivered and the characters are carried out. They won’t get it, ’cause they will be like we have seen you in something like this. You have to keep adapting…you have to give them something different.

And you are doing Dhoom 3...
Yes, can you imagine. Back for the third time. I am the king of sequels, I tell you. I have done more sequels than anybody else. I’m giving Rohit (director Rohit Shetty) competition. I love Dhoom because you have drama, you have action when it comes to Jai Dixit and the villain and you have a comedy when it comes to Ali and Jai. It’s actually all encapsulating, which is fun.

You’ll be working with actor Aamir Khan in the film who’s known to be a perfectionist…
Everyone is a perfectionist. You know he’s given a lot of stick unfairly. You know I’ve done a little bit of work with him, more in preparation, when he’s in the film it’s not about him, which actually is a very difficult thing for an actor to do. It’s about the film and that’s an unbelievable quality to have at the end of the day. You know he treats Uday and me like we are his childhood buddies, and I think it’s a rare talent for an actor to speak to everybody as an equal. I don’t mean this in a condescending way, we are either looking up to people or we are like I don’t have time. Now he’s been around for 20-25 years, when Qayamat Se Qayamet came out in ’87-’88, I was in school. So you’ve seen him grow and he doesn’t need, he can be like ‘okay boys goodluck’, he can have that attitude, he has earned it but he’s not. He calls asking have you worked out today, let’s workout together, let’s do the readings. What it does is, it automatically frees you from (gulping) I’m working with this great actor. That’s a quality I’ve seen my Dad do a lot.

You’ve also worked with Ajay Devgn, Shah Rukh Khan and Sanjay Dutt..
I’ve worked with all of them. Sanju sir, he is much senior, he’s family to me. I’ve known him since I was a baby but he’s somebody I wouldn’t call my friend. He’s like an elder brother; I have immense respect for him. It is not a casual relationship; he’s my senior and respectful. Ajay is like my buddy, so it’s a different equation.

Yuva had a lot of actors but is considered one of your finest performances…
The kind of training I’ve received/outlook to acting is the day you get happy with the performance you should stop acting. Our dilemma is for eg, take Bol Bachchan, we finish shooting, then it goes through post-production, dubbing, you see the final product and you’re like I could have done this better. Even in those 2-3 months you’ve thought of a new way to do it. So today if I see Yuva, I’m immensely proud of the film but yet as an actor do I feel I can come up with newer ways to perform.

Arjun Kapoor’s debut character was compared to yours..
It feels great. Anytime your work is referred to feels great. You have to be thankful for that, means you have become a standard somewhere. And if people think my work is worthy of being compared to I think it’s a huge compliment.