Celebrating the career of the late Irrfan Khan, Subhash K Jha shares what the brilliant actor told him in an earlier interview about how he becomes his characters and reveals what was Irrfan’s most cherished dream role.
Irrfan Khan was was hoping to play Jawaharlal Nehru in Joe Wright’s Indian Summer, is undeterred by the fact that he looks nothing like India’s first prime minister and says he can pull off the role convincingly.
He told me, “I’ll turn myself into the character through my attitude. When I was just out of the NSD (National School of Drama) I had played Lenin at the age of 21. It made me realise my potential and direction as an actor. Since Lenin, I’ve played other biographical characters. I’m playing another real-life character, Pan Singh Tomar. I’ll be playing the Punjabi poet Pash in Anurag Kashyap’s film. I can pull off Nehruji for sure.”
Irrfan thanked Danny Boyle for keeping him in the loop about Indian Summer. “It was Danny Boyle who, after Slumdog Millionaire, told me about the part. The British film industry is very small. Everyone knows about the films being made. Danny told me about Indian Summer. It came to me. Then, nothing more was heard of it. I forgot all about it. Now I hear it’s on again. I’m very, very excited. I’m a huge fan of the director Joe Wright’s work. But the offer hasn’t come formally to me yet,” he said.
Based on Alex von Tunzelmann’s book Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire, the film which eventually got shelved was to feature Cate Blanchett as Edwina and Hugh Grant as the last British Viceroy in India Lord Mountbatten.
Earlier, another talented Indian actor, Roshan Seth, had played Nehru in Ben Kingsley’s Oscar winner Gandhi. Though Irrfan loved how Roshan played the role, he has no intention of using his performance as a reference point. “There are many fine actors playing Gandhi. Whom would you call the finest? Roshan Seth is an actor I just love. Our industry is not equipped to handle his talent. But I’d never copy him. My reference would be the script and the way I interpret the character. When I had just started acting I used to draw a map for my character. I didn’t have the skill to surpass that map. Today, I can afford to be unpredictable,” said the actor, who was much in demand for international projects.
“All thanks to my film Warrior, which Mira Nair saw and cast me in The Namesake. Not too many people have seen me in Warrior. One of my proudest moments recently was when Mr. Amitabh Bachchan praised me on his blog. It requires a large heart to acknowledge another actor. He’s a genuine and generous soul,” said the actor.
