Irrfan Khan

Lakshmi Pratury: Right now, you're known mostly all around the world for playing the billionaire in the Jurassic World, and for, Life of Pi, and for Lunchbox. But actually, you know, and of course all the awards you're getting all around the world, et cetera. But this is a 1988 Salaam Bombay!

Film. Right. One of the first films that you've done. Right. You've been doing this, but the recognition has come in maybe the last 10 years. Right. So has the.

You know, but your work, your dedication, your interest is the same. So in what way has people's behavior toward you changed, in the last five years? Irrfan Khan: When I started, people used to consider me as a good actor, but I could see that I am not ruling their heart.

I'm not creating a spell in their heart. They are not carrying memories. They know that he's a, technically he's a good actor.

They used to have a respect for me. But they never, I could feel that they never used to carry that experience of my stories or my characters home. That was the main difference when I started getting my kind of stories, when I had the confidence to put my own interpretation to the characters.

And then there was a kind of, you know, world I started creating, and that started impacting, people's, intellect and their emotion. That was the time I was waiting for. Lakshmi Pratury: Yeah. This is the Yeah.

Film. So you talked about your turning point. In what way was this film for yourself a turning point? Irrfan Khan: I was doing television, a lot of television, and most of the television was, verbal drama.

There was no behavior in it. It was mostly informative drama where you have to tell the audience what's going in your head, what you are thinking. Everything you have to verbalize.

Lakshmi Pratury: Very literal. Literal. Literal, yeah. Irrfan Khan: Like, you know, a housewife can be in the kitchen, but still if she's hearing the television, she could follow what's going on. She doesn't need to look at it, you know.

Okay. Lakshmi Pratury: So That's interesting. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Irrfan Khan: So that was a kind of limitation, and I used to struggle with it. You know, whenever I used to go, for the shoot of these, series, sometimes the producer used to get bugged.

They just wanted me to, you know, blurt out Yeah. You know, as fast as I could so that, you know, they they can save money in the editing. They can save money otherwise as well.

You know, they didn't want any kind of behavior. Even if sometimes I used to think that, you know, this guy shouldn't look like this, he should, he should look somewhere, some, you know, somebody else, they used to dissuade me. Yeah. You know, because everything costs money.

Right. So, I was getting frustrated, and at that time, this, story came to me and at that time I felt how things sometimes follow you and they give you what you are looking for. I was looking for a story where I could behave in that story, where I don't need to rely on lines to communicate.