I sin on screen, declares Emraan Hashmi

Emraan Hashmi dropped by at DNA and spoke to the team about his career, his upcoming films and a lot more.

You’re now seen as as an A-list hero...
Yes, I don’t know what that means. I mean you guys know better, about how you jump from the B-list to the A-list or become a star or a superstar. I don’t know that.

Now you’re being sarcastic.
I really don’t know. I want you guys to tell me what exactly cuts the list, the B-list and A-list, because I don’t understand. Is it the collections of your films? Is it that perceivably you don’t mingle with the who’s who of Bollywood? I don’t understand it. See, I’ve done films the way I used to, my agenda is still the same. I will still do the films that I believe in. You won’t suddenly see me doing a candyfloss film, running-around-trees kind of film. Thankfully, these mainstream filmmakers have adapted and seen that my films clock in the numbers at the box office.

Does your choice of roles in any way reflect the fact that very soon your son will be watching your films?
No, I don’t really make films for my family — I make films for the audience. They know it already. I’ve told them loads of times that if I make films for you, I’ll only end up watching it with you at home on DVD.

There was a time when one read that Bipasha Basu had refused a film with you, and now one reads that Kareena Kapoor wants to work with you. How do you feel about this turnaround?
Everyone has their own way of selecting films and they have their own agenda. They have a right to the way they think. I work the way that I work. For me, it is the script that’s given to me. I’ve never really put my foot down about the actress I want to work with. I still never do that. Some people want to be cast with particular actresses, but that’s not a longing for me. For me, it was the stories — to work in a great story and play a great character. And these actresses have their reasons. Probably they felt that I couldn’t clock in the numbers at the box office that time. I think Bipasha had said that I was short for her...  kind of a metaphor (laughing), but I’ve gotten taller (laughing louder) over the past couple of years. Now she’s okay with my height, so now she’s okay to work with me. (big smile)

What has helped you gain that height?
Box office! It’s always the box office, it’s always the numbers your film opens up to.

Are there any controversies you want to hide?
No I’m the most non-controversial person. All the  controversial stuff is done on screen. I sin on screen, so I prefer not to sin off-screen (smiles).

Most people think you’re a bit shy, or that you have a bit of an attitude problem. How true is that?
Well, I’m not shy. It’s just that it takes some time for me to trust and let people in but once that happens I’m a fun guy.

What’s your role in Shanghai?
I play a small-town journalist called Jogi Parmar. He shoots shaadi videos, he’s a model coordinator,  a photographer and a porn filmmaker. He roams around with 10 visiting cards. He’s a sleazy wheeler-dealer who you’ve probably met in a small town. And he’s got some insecurities and complexes,  that he masks with a sense of bravado and overconfidence. Actually he’s extremely scared. He has that fear inside because there’s something in his past but he’s a very relatable character.

Was it your most difficult character to play?
Yes, I didn’t know what was happening for the first three days in the theatre workshops because as an actor, as a Bollywood actor, I’m kind of lazy. I learn my lines, go on the set and kind of improvise there. But Dibakar (director Dibakar Banerjee) works for a year with the script. He makes you actually get into the psyche of the character, which is kind of unnerving and makes you feel you don’t know acting. I actually began to feel inferior. Also, I had a huge problem because I have always played  urbanised, confident characters — the unconventional hero. So, Jogi was a question mark for me, and then after four sessions I saw him emerging in me. You know it’s weird. I mean theatre workshops make you go into a lot of things in your psyche, of your past humiliating experiences as a child and something fresh emerges from that.

But that shouldn’t have been very difficult, as you’ve come from Mahesh Bhatt’s kind of films (Wemeant exploring the dark side of the human psyche)?
So, we get humiliated there...  (laughs)?

But he does try to probe…
Yes, he does, but in a different way. It’s very intense, it’s serious cinema there, but there’s no ritual of workshops. We have readings, but we don’t have workshops. Bhatt saab has a different way of functioning.

You call yourself a mass hero. What prompted you to take up Shanghai, which has a serious undertone to it.
I wanted to work with Dibakar. I’d seen Khosla Ka Ghosla , and I thought it was a brilliant film. With the kind of budget he was given, he made a superb film, very gripping. When he came to me with this film, which is an adaptation of Z, I thought it was phenomenal. Also, what was artistic cinema five years back, is now flowing into the mainstream. Also, Bollywood actors generally, are narcissistic. They like to wear their good jackets and have their hair and make-up well kept. No one would really get into Jogi’s character, because it meant looking grotesque on screen and fairly repulsive, which for me is a great draw because I’ve admired actors like Christian Bale who will do a Machinist and loose 40 kilos as opposed to a Brad Pitt. I hope more actors play roles like that and more directors write roles where you change the physicality of a character and actually play a character as opposed to just heroes, which I find very boring.

So, for one year you did the workshops?
No, it was a month-and-a-half and I had to eat for a month and get a bit fat, acquire a small paunch, which was a bit unnerving because I had washboard abs for Murder. Dibakar said I want a paunch. So I started eating pizzas for a month. It’s easy putting on weight, it’s difficult losing it. So, though it was fun eating, it was not so fun trying to get out of that and get to Jannat’s character.

One got the impression, that in the initial stages you were uncomfortable with the ‘serial kisser’ tag...?
I'm not uncomfortable with it. I've never been uncomfortable with sexuality, on-screen, off- screen. I've been fairly liberal with my thoughts but I felt there was a lack of imagination, to be constantly plugging that in — ‘serial kisser’ — when actually I am doing different roles, but then they see a kissing scene and 'Oh, there's the serial kisser', which is ridiculous because they're different characters.

Was there ever a time you decided you probably didn't want to do this any further?
Oh, I always think about it. You know sometimes it's not just in your low phases. I didn't want to be an actor at all. So, for me it was just I'll do three-four films and I'll move on to something else.

What did you want to be?
I wanted to get into animation, graphics, 3D animation films. Lots of different stuff, but something creative. I wanted to be a director at some point in time.