No Saas-Bahu drama No Abhimaan either
April 28, 2011 by FSJ
Savvy celebrity husband Abhishek Bachchan On Dad, Mom, Aishwarya & Himself
He's nattily dressed in blue jeans, vibrant orange sneakers, a black tee and a watch with matching orange strap.
Abhishek has recently hired a PR firm of his own ' Amitabh and Aishwarya use different publicists. It was time the youngest Bachchan did that ' even diplomatic Devgn remarked on Koffee With Karan that Abhishek needed a new PR professional. Meanwhile, Abhi too, has accepted that aggressive promotions are the norm of the day before a release.
"You have to give as much to promotion as you do to making a film," he observes, aghast. "But," he shrugs, "I guess when you work hard on a film, it only makes sense that you work equally hard to put it out there. It is the demand of the day, you have to do it."
And after an intense 'watch-my-film' promotion, when a film doesn't do well, does it break your heart?
"Whenever a film doesn't do well, it is going to disappoint you," Abhishek accepts. "You invest so much physically, financially and emotionally in a film that if it doesn't give back what you have put in, it is very painful."
The pain was even more intense when Raavan, a real big one that arrived with great expectations, collapsed to the thud of 10 decapitated heads. It was more than just a flop film, it was like watching a painstakingly constructed edifice come crumbling down.
Abhishek has spent a whole year coming to terms with it. He is now ready to quietly deconstruct the experience.
"You spend your career trying to build up enough credibility, build up a reputation for a certain standard or quality, you work towards proving yourself to people who initially did not think you could do it. They finally admit that this boy has it in him, this boy can do it, he is successful.
You do movies like Bunty Aur Babli, Sarkar, Sarkar Raj, Bluffmaster or Guru and they say, 'Ok, this guy can act', which is what every actor wants. And then suddenly, after Raavan, they say no, wait, he doesn't know to act. So first it's like, "What happened?
Two months ago I could act, now I can't?" It takes you by surprise and then because you are so closely associated with it, you don't want to believe it at first. You go into denial but when it's apparent and in your face, you have to accept it. It ruins your confidence. It shakes you up, it really shakes you up."
"I don't know any actor who'd say 'no' to Mani Ratnam, especially after he's made a film called Guru with you"
How did you handle it?
One day I fell off the horse and the teacher said, 'Get back on right now'. I was a kid, I was like seven or eight, but he said, 'You get back on right now because if you don't, you never will'.
I did it and I carried on and today I love riding. I think it is a similar attitude towards a film. Just get back in front of the camera and keep working."
So, was the passionate reaction to Raavan a little demoralising?
"Not a little, you're totally demoralised," discloses Abhishek. "After that I was in no condition to work. Luckily, I was working with Rohan Sippy then on Dum Maaro Dum and he understood it. It was weird. Before Raavan my last release was Paa and I got fantastic, glorious reviews for my work in it.
People were writing, 'Oh, such restrained work'. I was compared even to Pa (his dad). And all of a sudden I was getting reviews like, he's got only one expression. I was taken aback, it confuses you, especially because I've never been the kind of person who opposes reviews.
"I know you have to follow your heart but at the end of the day you're performing for an audience and if they're not getting your work then you're doing something wrong.
So it throws up all these questions, it's very difficult to come out of it. I hate talking like this because it's such a cynical way of looking at things. But I realise today that there's so much in movie making that's just not in your control. An actor has to stand up for his films, whether it is a hit or a flop.
I take great responsibility for all my films, especially the ones that haven't done well. But I've also realised that though actors are the face of a film, they're actually the most powerless people in a film.
"The minute you give your shot, it's over and done with and you've got nothing to do with it. At the end of the day you cannot edit the film for yourself.
The director has a vision, the editor has a vision, the background score will be somebody else's vision, the sound mixing will be somebody else's.
There are so many things that can make or break your performance. Hence I've always said, I can never take the full credit for my performances because there are so many other people who have helped make it, from co-actors to technicians. But I've also started realising that for a person who's meant to be the face of the film, you're actually the most powerless person in that entire setup!"
So where do you think Raavan went wrong?
"Raavan? I'll take the blame for that."
Blame for having done the film?
"I don't know any actor who'd say 'no' to Mani Ratnam, especially after he's made a film called Guru with you. And not after you hear the story of Raavan and the character he's given you.
The way I look at it, if I was good enough, the movie might have done well. It might be an arrogant way of looking at it but that's the standard, the level I'd like to perform at.
Evidently I wasn't good enough to pull the film through. I don't want to catch the convenient way out and say, oh, the editing was bad, the background music was too loud or the direction or the script was bad. I don't want to use them as excuses."
But your dad did. (Reportedly, Amitabh had blogged that Abhishek's patchy performance was due to the erratic editing and Mani Ratnam had retaliated through a sharp tweet.)
Abhishek is quick to defend his dad. "He didn't, he didn't, and it's something that really pained me and Mani Sir a lot, on two levels. You'll probably understand this a little better than others since you know my father," he takes the pains to explain.
"The fact is, suddenly you're stopping a parent from passing a comment on his child's work. My father has stopped commenting on any of my work ever since that day. That's mean. He's a father at the end of the day. He's allowed to pass a comment on his child's work, positive or negative.
He is Amitabh Bachchan, he's India's property, but we forget that he is also a parent. You've suddenly made a parent very wary of analysing on whatever platform the work of his child.
"Secondly, people very conveniently took that entire conversation out of context and made it out to be something it was not. There were all these great news stories about how Mani tweeted about it.
Mani is not even on Twitter! There was only this fake account from where it came, but it all just snowballed. Post the premiere of Raavan, we were just discussing it and we told Dad about certain portions that had been cut out. Later when someone mentioned to Dad that he found my performance patchy, Dad told him that certain scenes had been cut out.
That was taken as if he had talked against the editing. He didn't, it pained me because you're putting my father through this for something he had not done. It pained Mani because he has a huge amount of respect for my father. My father called him up and said, sorry, this is what I said and he clarified it.
And Mani said, 'Amitji, you don't need to do that, I know what the truth is.' It put Mani in an awkward position because Mani is family for me, he's very, very close to Aishwarya and I, he's like a father figure to me. He called me and said, Amitji doesn't need to do that."
After Raavan, did Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se take your spirits further down?
"No. Ashu(tosh) said something wonderful to me at the Kolkata premiere which I really, really liked. We were discussing Raavan, I'd already finished shooting for Khelein' when Raavan was released.
He said, when I conceive a film I set a goal for myself. I'm not going to allow other people to tell me whether I've achieved that goal or not. Personally as an individual I have to decide, have I achieved it?
"I tried to do something different in Khelein' and I think I achieved it. I approached it emotionally. I strongly felt that what had happened needed to be spoken about.
Whether the film worked or not, at least now people know who Surjya Sen was or about the Chittagong Uprising. So I have no regrets."
Having said that, Abhishek also adds that most times the failure of a film has not caught him by surprise.
"Every actor knows whether a film is going to work or not," says he. "I've known about each and every film of mine. Out of the 50 films I've done I've gone wrong only on one film.
Jhoom Barabar Jhoom. I loved it! I thought it was a funny film but it didn't do well. Otherwise I've been right about each and every one of my films to the T."
You knew it about Raavan?
"I didn't know, I felt it. Every actor does. We just don't have the guts to say it."
Abhishek had sniffed the way Game was heading too. Fortunately for him, Game was so low on hype that it didn't bring him the kind of flak Raavan and Khelein' did, it simply came and went unnoticed.
But they have all contributed to Abhishek Bachchan once again going through a lull in his career.
"There's another thing I've never understood," he protests. "Every time a film of mine does well, I never get the credit for it. And every time it doesn't do well, I get blamed for it.
I know 10 to 20 actors who've had more than 10 flops in a row and it's never called a lull. My last hit was Paa but they'll say, 'no that was your father's movie. Why? Dostana was a hit, but no, that was John's.
Why am I never given the credit? I feel bad, sometimes I feel like saying, 'Hey, even I have acted in the film. I also worked very hard on Paa.'"
He goes on, "And then two films don't do well and people say, he's going through a bad phase. I have a question? Will you ask Aamir whose Dhobi Ghat didn't do well, the same question?"
Aamir made money on it.
"So Riteish Sidhwani made money on Game, Ashutosh made money on Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se, Mani made money on Raavan. So that's not the criterion.
I've been told that Dhobi Ghat didn't do well. So are you going to say Aamir is going through a lull? Why then am I told that I am going through a lull?"
Because you had three, four films that didn't do well?
"But people started saying, he's going through a lull right after Raavan when I was promoting Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se," he argues.
"There's another point I wish to make trade-wise. I didn't say it then because it would have sounded defensive. Everybody said that the price of Raavan was '90 crore. What they very conveniently left out was, for that price they bought three films, a Tamil, a Telugu and a Hindi film. So if you divide '90 crore by three, it means the Hindi film was sold at '30 crore. Raavan's business in Hindi alone if you check today is '38 crore. So from which angle was there a loss?"
It is unsaid but you and I know that all Abhishek needs is a box-office hit. An upbeat sense of achievement will wash away the travails of failure.
To shift to more pleasant territory, one area where Abhishek has quietly scored is as a producer. Paa was a hit because Abhishek steadfastly stuck to a budget of '15 crore. He does seem to be business savvy, to have understood the film market.
"Well, that was my training", he points out. "I started as a production boy in Major Saab and ABCL. Then I became an actor and the first film I produced was Paa. When Balki told us the concept we knew this was a movie we wanted to make. That's the first step.
Are you passionate about the subject? Are you willing to do what it takes because it can't just be a business proposition. Secondly, keeping the style of the film, keeping in mind the kind of script it was, we arrived at a budget of '15 to '17 crore.
I had wonderful offers for Paa from a lot of big studios at '60-70 crore. I made the film with '15 crore. I could have made a killing for my company if we'd sold it for '60-70 crore but I consulted Pa and we both decided not to sell because the film would have been buried under that weight.
You have to be intelligent about how you budget your films. Then they can all do well."
Aishwarya Rai bursts into the room with writer Niranjan Iyer ' they've just been through a script narration of Heroine with Madhur Bhandarkar.
This is another territory where Abhishek has done well. It's been four years of marriage and there's a lot of happiness evident in the partnership.
What's it been like these four years?
"Good fun, I have enjoyed myself."
No regrets?
"No, none at all. I wouldn't have got married if I had even an iota of doubt or regret."
I believe you'll are doing another film together, Raj Kumar Santoshi's?
"Ya, Ladies And Gentlemen. We will start that later in the year."
You like working with each other a little more than with other people?
"No, nothing like that. At the end of the day you are doing a film. The only benefit we have is that we get to spend a lot of time together."
Hmm, won't that be an overdose of each other?
"No, because we are so busy working. Like I was in New Zealand shooting for Players, and now I am going to Russia for the same film."
When you have an anniversary do you do special things, go out or something?
"Of course we plan something but not this year."
So do you give each other presents and stuff like that?
"No. We don't give presents on our anniversary. We spend quality time together. I think that's the greatest gift we can give each other."
There's been one noticeably fabulous trait in this young husband. Considering he himself is a celebrity, he's been comfortable walking the red carpet at Cannes or attending a world premiere as Aishwarya's husband. Always perfectly supportive, does it comes to him naturally?
"You know I never thought about it," he muses. "The first time I thought about it was when the media asked me about it.
In fact the first time I was asked this question I found it a bit regressive. I asked in return, 'Why don't you ask the women when they accompany their husbands? Why is only the husband asked this question when he accompanies his wife?'"
Totally.
"Maybe that's something I learnt from Ma, I don't know. Aishwarya is my wife. If it's her premiere I will gladly go to it. I will be proud of it."
"Or if she's walking the red carpet and if she has asked me to go with her, I would gladly accompany her. I am not going to think of what the media is going to say.
I am very happy to support my wife and celebrate her in every way because she does the same for me. I don't think anybody asks her or I don't think she questions herself before she has to come to any event of mine. So why should I? What other people have to say about it doesn't bother me at all.
"I have seen my father do it. Be it my mother's movie premiere or an event of hers, Pa is there. So maybe that's why it's never been an issue with me, I've never thought about it. She is my wife right? If she has an event, as a husband I should be there.
"If you expect her to accompany you to your events, you should be prepared to go for hers. I mean if you love someone and that person is your wife, then why would you not want to?"
In fact Aishwarya has been doing even more work after marriage. She had four releases in 2010 and now she has signed a few more. When she works abroad, she is out for weeks, just as Abhishek is for his work.
"So I am allowed to do that but she is not?" he questions, surprised that such outdated reactions still exist. Aishwarya is the lucky girl who's got herself the savviest husband in town. But Abhishek is equally his mother's much-doted-upon son too.
Do you celebrate Mother's Day?
"I find these days very offensive. You celebrate your mother only on one day?" he wonders. "You should celebrate your loved ones every day. Not just one day."
Is there anything special you would like to say about your mother?
"Well, I am who I am because of my mother. I owe everything to her. I can't do anything without her till date." Jaya is in London at this time. The phone beeps. "That must be Ma's message right now," says Abhishek. "Ya, my mother is my anchor."
You'd say that even after marriage?
"Ya, most definitely, and what's wonderful is that Aishwarya and Ma are as close as I am to my mom."
You never had to go through saas-bahu tension?
"No, never. They gossip and chat more than I talk to my mother. They get along like a house on fire." Abhishek too, is like an additional son to Aishwarya's parents. Last year there was concern over her father, Krishna Rai's health.
"He's perfectly fine now," Abhishek happily reports.
Really? It's all in regression?
"Ya, it's all gone."
See? There's plenty going really well too, in Abhishek Bachchan's life.
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