John Abraham is at the Cannes Film Festival this week to promote his new film Goal directed by Vivek Agnihotri. This film produced by UTV Motion Pictures also stars Bipasha Basu, Arshad Warsi and Boman Irani and was filmed entirely in England.
Abraham’s character is that of Sunny Bhasin, a UK-born Indian who plays for a Southall football club. Talking about Goal John Abraham said: “It’s a commercially oriented film but completely realistic. It’s about the journey of a man who travels from playing for a British club to turning out for a South Asian team to assert his identity – it’s a story of inspiration, glory and victory.”
It took Abraham a lot of practice to learn how to transfer the ball from his feet to under his neck among other amazing moves but he performed all the football sequences. “I have done with football here what I did with bikes in Dhoom. Every single move in the film is authentic.”
With this film Abraham is continuing on his path of taking roles in not your standard run of the mill films. He started in Water in 2005 and then Kabul Express last year. It is a risky path to take but he truly believes that there is a new approach to film making that is being more accepted and that the resistance to this change is weakening. Unbelievably he said, “How else do you explain an actor with a name and face like mine being so openly accepted these days?”
But most of all he added, “I do the kind of films that I believe in. Some people in the industry might feel that I am sailing against the tide and will have to pay for it. They were skeptical about my ability to pull off the role in Water. I am now also doing Deepa Mehta’s next film, Exclusion, with Amitabh Bachchan.”
With Goal being promoted at Cannes Abraham is capitalizing on his growing global appeal and increasing the numbers of his international fans. We look forward to seeing what this (contrary to his thoughts) most handsome actor has in store for us in the years to come!
