‘I still do Boxing training on alternate days’, says Farhan Akhtar!
#FarhanAkhtar is an extremely talented person in the film industry. Coming from an illustrious family, where both his parents have film connections, Farhan has created a niche for himself. He started off as a director and his first film ‘#DilChahtaHai’ is considered a cult film which soon will be completing 20 years. He is very humble in saying that all the noted actors, Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Preity Zinta, Akshay Khanna, Sonali Kulkarni, Dimple Kapadia, agreed to work with the then newcomer like him. And that’s the reason he says, ‘I give full respect to the new script writer entering my office because that reminds me of my initial days in the industry.’
His latest film ‘Toofaan’ released on an OTT platform recently and is getting thumbs up from the audiences. It’s based on a boxer’s life and Farhan trained hard to get proper boxer’s physique. ‘I used to train 6 days a week, 5 hours daily no-stop. After toiling for 8 months like this we shot the first shot of ‘Toofaan’. By then I already was feeling the character. When you get into the physical aspect of the character the mental strength automatically follows. Again every character I play I always take something from it. Now too I practise boxing on alternate days because I love the discipline associated with it’, says Farhan.
The idea of ‘Toofan’ came from Farhaan himself who requested his writer friend Anjum to take it further and the first draft was made. He took it to Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra as both of them have done a sports film, ‘Bhag Milkha Bhag’, earlier. He said, ‘During BMB Rakeysh came to me with the idea and we shook hand in 20 minutes. This time around I went to Rakeysh and pithed the idea of Toofaan and we shook hands in 20 minutes.’
As the corona pandemic threat is still looming large, the theatres in the country are shut indefinitely. Quite a few film makers are opting out for OTT platforms to release their films. Farhan Akhtar’s ‘Toofaan’, in fact he’s one of the producers of the film, recently released on OTT. He feels that if the product and storyline is gripping and engrossing then the mobile screen too will be like big screen for the viewers. When asked whether the director in him meddle while acting, Farhan laughed and said, ‘When I work as an actor I respect the captain of the ship. Each director has a larger overview of the scheme of things which is bigger as compared to me as an actor, because I play just a single character. As an actor I do trust the director’s vision and perform accordingly.’
Farhan has a multi-faceted personality and does everything with elan. He’s an actor, a producer, a director, a dancer, a writer, a singer and so on and so forth. Wishing him luck for future projects.