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Kabir Khan: Salman Khan filmed sleeping on a bench can make Rs 90 crore !
Ahead of the release of the much-awaited film Bajrangi Bhaijaan, director Kabir Khan speaks to India Today about Salman Khan, working with the actor and more.
Suhani Singh | July 15, 2015
You've worked with Salman the actor before. But this time, he is also the film's producer. How is he as one?
(Laughs) I don't think he really thought about that aspect, because the line production was done by me. So, in that sense, I was more of a producer on the sets than he was.
So, he just gave you the money and said, Do whatever you want'?
No, he was involved. But he was not involved in the film just because he was the producer. He just bought into the story in a big way. He was passionately involved in every aspect of the film. I have done Ek Tha Tiger with him. But there's a huge difference in the way we approached this film.
For Ek Tha Tiger, there were a lot of discussions, a bit of a tussle in the sensibilities and what we wanted to do in the film. In Bajrangi Bhaijaan, it was so smooth because from the word go, we were on the same page. By the end of Tiger, we became very good friends and understood the way we approach work. After the film was done, I kept meeting him, not always talking about films necessarily. And I realised that there is a depth to and intensity in Salman about certain subjects which has never been heard or channelised. For example, his whole take on our cultural identity and the secular fabric of this country. He feels very strongly about it. It's exactly the way I feel about these kinds of subjects.
We have a commonality in our backdrops. My father, like his, is also a Pathan. We have seen and approached religion in our lives in a very different way. We have celebrated, and continue to celebrate, both religions equally, but only the cultural aspect of it. We both stay away from rituals. I don't know about him, but I am definitely agnostic.
We were keen after Tiger to collaborate again. But I was clear that it would be when I get a story both of us are equally excited about. When Bajrangi came to me, I knew it was something he'd jump at. The character is an antithesis of the Salman you have been seeing in movies. I narrated the film to him and also described how I wanted to make it. That's when he decided to step in as producer, too, because he didn't want to dilute the vision at all. It became a great asset for me.
As I say, the dynamics of a superstar film are completely different. It's a different ball game altogether, the process and set of logistics. When that superstar is on the same page as you are, as far as the sensibilities are concerned, and the way you want to make the film, there can be no greater ally. That's the case with Bajrangi Bhaijaan. That's why it has been such an enjoyable process.
As a filmmaker, how difficult it is to tell someone with Salman's star-power that something isn't working? After all, whatever he does manages to make Rs 100 crore anyway even if it is a Jai Ho.
I think that is the process we went through in Tiger. If things are not working, I don't mince my words. I say it as it is. He is a mega star and I had done only two films when we worked on that film. I'm sure he was like, 'Why is this guy telling me that it isn't going to work, when I have been making everybody's films work'. I told him that it is not what I have set out to make. There was a little give and take in the process. In Tiger, I can still see that there were lots of parts of the film which were out of my hand. It went on to do superb business, and I still wonder why. (Laughs) What we did manage to pull off though was the sheer spectacle of it.
With Bajrangi, I have a firm grip on every line, moment, shot. I have hundred per cent ownership of the film. Bajrangi would not have worked with spectacles. The hero is the story, and the way we have told it. Salman was totally in sync with the vision and went along.
While watching a Salman performance, you often feel that he is not putting in much work, that he is just being himself. He is pushing it over here. There is no taking away from the fact that he is probably the biggest star in the industry. I often tell him that if we film you sleeping on a bench, it will make Rs 80 to 90 crore before people will say, 'Arre Bhai toh utha hi nahi hai (Oh Bhai hasn't even woken up).' He is at that level of stardom. It's a nice, feel-good story that works without Salman Khan, but then you add the stardom of Salman Khan to it and it can go through the roof.
How did V Vijayendra Prasad, better known as story writer of Baahubali and father of director SS Rajamouli, come to you with the story?
Post Tiger, I started getting a lot of calls from South Indian producers who wanted me to remake some stuff of theirs. I used to tell them that I'm not someone who gets excited by remakes. I don't think I should indulge in that. Unfortunately, I am a little ignorant of the names down in the South Indian industry. So I ended up stonewalling someone who was trying to get in touch with me. I got a call from a friend of mine, Parvez Damania, who said that there is a guy who has been trying to get in touch with me. He vouched that they are good people, that he knows them and that I should meet them. I agreed.
Somebody else from his team first came to me and briefly summed up the story. I was like, 'Oh My God, can I make this film?' Then Mr Prasad came to Mumbai and narrated the story to me. I was completely blown away.
I always say that I became a film writer by default. When I first wrote Kabul Express, I wrote it because I was a documentary filmmaker and I was going through those experiences and I kept putting them down in the story. I thought that when a producer comes on board, I will hire a writer. But when the producer came in the form of Aditya Chopra and I suggested him that we get a writer, he was like 'What do you want to hire one for?' He said what I had written was what he wanted to make.
But my dream till today is that somebody gives me a script, and I read it and say I want to make this. It saves me the six months of agony I go through while writing a script. This is the first time somebody told me a story, and I knew I wanted to make it, come what may. This is up my street. Mr Prasad knew it too. So I am glad he came to me. I obviously told him that I'd be doing the screenplay for the film. Parvez Shaikh (Queen), who has become my sounding board, has helped me with it. Mr Prasad also gets credit as his story had elements of screenplay.
This is your fourth film with another one on the way. Your fondness for international politics and social commentary has been evident in all your films so far.
We make films we like to watch. That's the kind of cinema I have liked watching. It's my background in documentaries and travelling with journalist Saeed Naqvi all over the world and looking at international politics from a South Asian context that developed this space in me. I realised there is a huge gap between the stories that are told to us by the news channels and the real stories that lie on the ground when you travel to these places. My films lie in that gap.
In India, I have often struggled with watching a film which is set in a vacuum. I can't connect to the characters unless I know something about the context they are in. That's why Mani Ratnam is one of my favourite filmmakers, because he is able to do that in the mainstream space. I have tried to emulate him. I am not dabbling in alternative space. I want to throw my ideas out in the open, in the mainstream space.
I am not making the film about the politics. It is the backdrop which has a strong bearing on the story being played out. The backdrop is not separate. It will make a difference. Similarly with Bajrangi, it can be the story of a little girl lost in Mumbai and a man trying to find her. But because it is set against the backdrop of India-Pakistan and the hostilities, it just makes for engaging storytelling and interesting experiences the characters go through.
I don't know if it is conscious. It comes organically from within. I always try to put in a real context to the story. That excites me. The audiences are not as apolitical as we like to believe. What they don't like is if you shove politics down their throat. You need to engage them with characters.
Munni (played by debutant Harshali Malhotra) is speech-impaired in the film. Is it to add more drama to the story? Or just to keep the kid quite on the sets?
It is a very integral part of the story. It won't work without that.
Tell us about Nawazuddin Siddiqui's part in the film.
He is outstanding. In the trailer, we have not given an inkling as to what he has done in the film. He is one person we are holding back. We want people to discover him. The rapport between Salman and Nawaz is the highlight of the film. You will walk away with the two of them.
I'd also like to say that Salman is so secure in his stardom that he never feels threatened. Because of that, he gives so much of space to the other guy. He'd start laughing on the sets when Nawaz was reading a line, and he'd be like, 'You also say this line'.
I have been dying to work with Nawaz after New York in which he had a five-minute role.
Salman is also sharing space with a kid in the film. How is he around them?
I don't think too many people know this but Salman's chemistry with kids is sheer magic. I have seen him with kids and with my own kids. In fact he kept saying, 'Saira (Kabir Khan's own daughter) ko cast kar le [Cast Saira for the part]. And I was like, 'No, Mini (Mathur) is not going to allow me to do that.'
With kids, you can't have fake chemistry. They just love him. It is one of the reasons I wanted to do this character with Salman because if I can manage to get half of that chemistry, then this film is a sure-fire hit. The dynamic between him and six-year-old Harshaali is magic. It was both a challenge and joy to work with a kid. It really makes you think about how you make people act.
We heard that Harshaali was quite a tantrum thrower on the sets.
Was she aware that she is acting opposite a superstar?
She knew that he is a big star. She comes from a family which has nothing to do with films or the media. But her mother says that since Harshaali has been three or four, she has been fascinated with movies for some strange reason. I have kept her away from the madness of marketing. The film has to have some enigma left to it.
When it comes to movies dealing with India-Pakistan hostilities, it is easy to play the good cop and bad cop game.
I remember during Tiger I told Salman that 'I don't have villains in my film'. I don't understand how someone can be a villain. He can be in a negative space and you may not agree with the ideology of the person, but from his or her point of view, they are doing the right thing. So even the guy in Taliban is justifying that bulls**t in Kabul Express. There has to be shades of grey in everybody.
I have seen it in actors, too. If one is to play a Pakistani policeman, there is a strange posturing and sneering. The stereotypes are so inbuilt.
With Pavan Kumar Chaturvedi (played by Salman), he comes from a certain ideology and backdrop. He has been told that people across that line are villains. But he is a nice guy. He has never questioned that ideology. Suddenly he sees this little girl and it turns out that she is from across the border. So how is she any different from an Indian girl?
I have huge issues with the politics the Pakistan state plays and I have addressed that in Phantom in an aggressive way. I can't put the responsibility of the state politics on the people. Enemies are the state and the state-sponsored forces. I hate getting into a jingoistic space. I really have to guard myself from getting into that because we do inadvertently sometimes fall into that.
Why did Phantom get delayed?
It was always going to be back-to-back releases. Dates of Katrina and Saif went for a toss because of the other stuff they were shooting, especially Katrina was busy with Bang Bang. That pushed Phantom's end schedule dangerously close to the first schedule of Bajrangi which was supposed to start in November.
Even then we were readying ourselves for April 3 release. UTV was supposed to release Jagga Jasoos on August 20. They later called us up saying that let's shift it to that slot because it is a rakhi weekend. There is no delay for any other reason. There was a lot of talk about being similar to Baby because it also deals with going after terrorists. Phantom is totally ready.
india today
salman khan kabir khan interview text interview bb text interview bajrangi bhaijaan text interview indiatoday kids harshali malhotra nawazuddin siddiqui
Jul 15th, 2015
Ahead of the release of the much-awaited film Bajrangi Bhaijaan, director Kabir Khan speaks to India Today about Salman Khan, working with the actor and more.
Suhani Singh | July 15, 2015
You've worked with Salman the actor before. But this time, he is also the film's producer. How is he as one?
(Laughs) I don't think he really thought about that aspect, because the line production was done by me. So, in that sense, I was more of a producer on the sets than he was.
So, he just gave you the money and said, Do whatever you want'?
No, he was involved. But he was not involved in the film just because he was the producer. He just bought into the story in a big way. He was passionately involved in every aspect of the film. I have done Ek Tha Tiger with him. But there's a huge difference in the way we approached this film.
For Ek Tha Tiger, there were a lot of discussions, a bit of a tussle in the sensibilities and what we wanted to do in the film. In Bajrangi Bhaijaan, it was so smooth because from the word go, we were on the same page. By the end of Tiger, we became very good friends and understood the way we approach work. After the film was done, I kept meeting him, not always talking about films necessarily. And I realised that there is a depth to and intensity in Salman about certain subjects which has never been heard or channelised. For example, his whole take on our cultural identity and the secular fabric of this country. He feels very strongly about it. It's exactly the way I feel about these kinds of subjects.
We have a commonality in our backdrops. My father, like his, is also a Pathan. We have seen and approached religion in our lives in a very different way. We have celebrated, and continue to celebrate, both religions equally, but only the cultural aspect of it. We both stay away from rituals. I don't know about him, but I am definitely agnostic.
We were keen after Tiger to collaborate again. But I was clear that it would be when I get a story both of us are equally excited about. When Bajrangi came to me, I knew it was something he'd jump at. The character is an antithesis of the Salman you have been seeing in movies. I narrated the film to him and also described how I wanted to make it. That's when he decided to step in as producer, too, because he didn't want to dilute the vision at all. It became a great asset for me.
As I say, the dynamics of a superstar film are completely different. It's a different ball game altogether, the process and set of logistics. When that superstar is on the same page as you are, as far as the sensibilities are concerned, and the way you want to make the film, there can be no greater ally. That's the case with Bajrangi Bhaijaan. That's why it has been such an enjoyable process.
As a filmmaker, how difficult it is to tell someone with Salman's star-power that something isn't working? After all, whatever he does manages to make Rs 100 crore anyway even if it is a Jai Ho.
I think that is the process we went through in Tiger. If things are not working, I don't mince my words. I say it as it is. He is a mega star and I had done only two films when we worked on that film. I'm sure he was like, 'Why is this guy telling me that it isn't going to work, when I have been making everybody's films work'. I told him that it is not what I have set out to make. There was a little give and take in the process. In Tiger, I can still see that there were lots of parts of the film which were out of my hand. It went on to do superb business, and I still wonder why. (Laughs) What we did manage to pull off though was the sheer spectacle of it.
With Bajrangi, I have a firm grip on every line, moment, shot. I have hundred per cent ownership of the film. Bajrangi would not have worked with spectacles. The hero is the story, and the way we have told it. Salman was totally in sync with the vision and went along.
While watching a Salman performance, you often feel that he is not putting in much work, that he is just being himself. He is pushing it over here. There is no taking away from the fact that he is probably the biggest star in the industry. I often tell him that if we film you sleeping on a bench, it will make Rs 80 to 90 crore before people will say, 'Arre Bhai toh utha hi nahi hai (Oh Bhai hasn't even woken up).' He is at that level of stardom. It's a nice, feel-good story that works without Salman Khan, but then you add the stardom of Salman Khan to it and it can go through the roof.
How did V Vijayendra Prasad, better known as story writer of Baahubali and father of director SS Rajamouli, come to you with the story?
Post Tiger, I started getting a lot of calls from South Indian producers who wanted me to remake some stuff of theirs. I used to tell them that I'm not someone who gets excited by remakes. I don't think I should indulge in that. Unfortunately, I am a little ignorant of the names down in the South Indian industry. So I ended up stonewalling someone who was trying to get in touch with me. I got a call from a friend of mine, Parvez Damania, who said that there is a guy who has been trying to get in touch with me. He vouched that they are good people, that he knows them and that I should meet them. I agreed.
Somebody else from his team first came to me and briefly summed up the story. I was like, 'Oh My God, can I make this film?' Then Mr Prasad came to Mumbai and narrated the story to me. I was completely blown away.
I always say that I became a film writer by default. When I first wrote Kabul Express, I wrote it because I was a documentary filmmaker and I was going through those experiences and I kept putting them down in the story. I thought that when a producer comes on board, I will hire a writer. But when the producer came in the form of Aditya Chopra and I suggested him that we get a writer, he was like 'What do you want to hire one for?' He said what I had written was what he wanted to make.
But my dream till today is that somebody gives me a script, and I read it and say I want to make this. It saves me the six months of agony I go through while writing a script. This is the first time somebody told me a story, and I knew I wanted to make it, come what may. This is up my street. Mr Prasad knew it too. So I am glad he came to me. I obviously told him that I'd be doing the screenplay for the film. Parvez Shaikh (Queen), who has become my sounding board, has helped me with it. Mr Prasad also gets credit as his story had elements of screenplay.
This is your fourth film with another one on the way. Your fondness for international politics and social commentary has been evident in all your films so far.
We make films we like to watch. That's the kind of cinema I have liked watching. It's my background in documentaries and travelling with journalist Saeed Naqvi all over the world and looking at international politics from a South Asian context that developed this space in me. I realised there is a huge gap between the stories that are told to us by the news channels and the real stories that lie on the ground when you travel to these places. My films lie in that gap.
In India, I have often struggled with watching a film which is set in a vacuum. I can't connect to the characters unless I know something about the context they are in. That's why Mani Ratnam is one of my favourite filmmakers, because he is able to do that in the mainstream space. I have tried to emulate him. I am not dabbling in alternative space. I want to throw my ideas out in the open, in the mainstream space.
I am not making the film about the politics. It is the backdrop which has a strong bearing on the story being played out. The backdrop is not separate. It will make a difference. Similarly with Bajrangi, it can be the story of a little girl lost in Mumbai and a man trying to find her. But because it is set against the backdrop of India-Pakistan and the hostilities, it just makes for engaging storytelling and interesting experiences the characters go through.
I don't know if it is conscious. It comes organically from within. I always try to put in a real context to the story. That excites me. The audiences are not as apolitical as we like to believe. What they don't like is if you shove politics down their throat. You need to engage them with characters.
Munni (played by debutant Harshali Malhotra) is speech-impaired in the film. Is it to add more drama to the story? Or just to keep the kid quite on the sets?
It is a very integral part of the story. It won't work without that.
Tell us about Nawazuddin Siddiqui's part in the film.
He is outstanding. In the trailer, we have not given an inkling as to what he has done in the film. He is one person we are holding back. We want people to discover him. The rapport between Salman and Nawaz is the highlight of the film. You will walk away with the two of them.
I'd also like to say that Salman is so secure in his stardom that he never feels threatened. Because of that, he gives so much of space to the other guy. He'd start laughing on the sets when Nawaz was reading a line, and he'd be like, 'You also say this line'.
I have been dying to work with Nawaz after New York in which he had a five-minute role.
Salman is also sharing space with a kid in the film. How is he around them?
I don't think too many people know this but Salman's chemistry with kids is sheer magic. I have seen him with kids and with my own kids. In fact he kept saying, 'Saira (Kabir Khan's own daughter) ko cast kar le [Cast Saira for the part]. And I was like, 'No, Mini (Mathur) is not going to allow me to do that.'
With kids, you can't have fake chemistry. They just love him. It is one of the reasons I wanted to do this character with Salman because if I can manage to get half of that chemistry, then this film is a sure-fire hit. The dynamic between him and six-year-old Harshaali is magic. It was both a challenge and joy to work with a kid. It really makes you think about how you make people act.
We heard that Harshaali was quite a tantrum thrower on the sets.
Was she aware that she is acting opposite a superstar?
She knew that he is a big star. She comes from a family which has nothing to do with films or the media. But her mother says that since Harshaali has been three or four, she has been fascinated with movies for some strange reason. I have kept her away from the madness of marketing. The film has to have some enigma left to it.
When it comes to movies dealing with India-Pakistan hostilities, it is easy to play the good cop and bad cop game.
I remember during Tiger I told Salman that 'I don't have villains in my film'. I don't understand how someone can be a villain. He can be in a negative space and you may not agree with the ideology of the person, but from his or her point of view, they are doing the right thing. So even the guy in Taliban is justifying that bulls**t in Kabul Express. There has to be shades of grey in everybody.
I have seen it in actors, too. If one is to play a Pakistani policeman, there is a strange posturing and sneering. The stereotypes are so inbuilt.
With Pavan Kumar Chaturvedi (played by Salman), he comes from a certain ideology and backdrop. He has been told that people across that line are villains. But he is a nice guy. He has never questioned that ideology. Suddenly he sees this little girl and it turns out that she is from across the border. So how is she any different from an Indian girl?
I have huge issues with the politics the Pakistan state plays and I have addressed that in Phantom in an aggressive way. I can't put the responsibility of the state politics on the people. Enemies are the state and the state-sponsored forces. I hate getting into a jingoistic space. I really have to guard myself from getting into that because we do inadvertently sometimes fall into that.
Why did Phantom get delayed?
It was always going to be back-to-back releases. Dates of Katrina and Saif went for a toss because of the other stuff they were shooting, especially Katrina was busy with Bang Bang. That pushed Phantom's end schedule dangerously close to the first schedule of Bajrangi which was supposed to start in November.
Even then we were readying ourselves for April 3 release. UTV was supposed to release Jagga Jasoos on August 20. They later called us up saying that let's shift it to that slot because it is a rakhi weekend. There is no delay for any other reason. There was a lot of talk about being similar to Baby because it also deals with going after terrorists. Phantom is totally ready.
india today
salman khan kabir khan interview text interview bb text interview bajrangi bhaijaan text interview indiatoday kids harshali malhotra nawazuddin siddiqui
Jul 15th, 2015
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