Anno magnifico, il 2015, per Irrfan Khan. Piku ha conseguito un enorme successo di pubblico e critica. Talvar, dopo aver incantato gli spettatori festivalieri di mezzo mondo, al botteghino indiano si sta comportando dignitosamente. Jazbaa, nel bene e nel male, è uno dei film più chiacchierati, osannati e discussi della stagione corrente. Irrfan è sempre Irrfan: solido, elegante, talentuoso, ironico, affascinante. Vi segnalo Irrfan Khan International, intervista concessa dalla star a Divya Unny, pubblicata da Open il 7 ottobre 2015:
'Dressed in a simple black tee and jeans, his energy unfazed by everything that’s buzzing around him. “It’s better to be the spectator than just the subject, isn’t it?” he asks. (...) Even as an interviewee he knows how to hold your attention. His eyes (...) tell you what his words don’t. He flashes a faint smile every time he reads between your questions. He barely uses his hands, much like the way he plays most of his parts. (...) With Piku, Jurassic World and now Talvar, 2015 is his year by every rule of the book. Rules, he loves to challenge with the parts he plays. “I don’t know if I can call it a breakthrough year, but I’m fortunate that all the good films are coming one after the other. The audiences are asking to be engaged mentally, emotionally, intellectually. Hell, they are asking us to engage them with time pass, but the good thing is at least they are thinking,” he says.
It’s been one of Khan’s strongest traits as an actor. He never underestimates his audience. No matter how mindful or mindless a film he’s part of, he always finds a direct connect with those watching him. Be it through a simple throwback of the head, or by adjusting his reading glasses, or pausing a few seconds before responding to a question, he always manages to steal a moment with the viewer - even before he communicates with his co-actor. He lets them in before letting himself out, and with precision as sharp as his gaze. This is perhaps why he finds a story to tell even with characters that may be drawn out in just a few lines on paper. “My character Rana in Piku is just one of the many parts Shoojit [Sircar] had written in this world that was so real. Honestly, there was little about Rana that could be fleshed out in the context of the story because it wasn’t about him. But then, how do you play a part like that with conviction? Just by surrendering yourself to that space. You cannot imagine the things you will discover once you make yourself believe that you are truly part of that world,” he says.
It’s a philosophy that never let him define his range as an actor in the three decades that he has been performing. You still cannot predict what Irrfan’s next role might be. He has never made moulds for himself like the ‘superstars’ of the Hindi film industry. He broke all barriers - of age, language and physical attributes - to get his space. (...) Some of Khan’s most lovable parts have him playing characters at least 20 years older than he is. “When I was playing Sunil Sanyal [dalla serie In Treatment], I was really falling short of life experiences to make it convincing. I was playing a widower who’s highly insecure of his surroundings and relationships. I did not have that kind of complexity. But that’s when your experiences, your desire to create something new is tested. You push and prod yourself to a point where you start discovering things about yourself you never knew,” he says. (...)
The journey was tough, to a point that made him want to give it all up. He still remembers being edited out of his first film Salaam Bombay!, an experience that broke his spirit. “I remember sobbing all night when Mira told me that my part was reduced to merely nothing. But it changed something within me. I was prepared for anything after that,” he says. From the very start, he came across as an actor with the intensity only very senior actors like Pankaj Kapur and Naseeruddin Shah possessed. It wasn’t like he was a troubled child, but there was something that was always brewing within him. “I was not an unhappy kid, but I was always craving my mother’s attention. I would do anything to get her affection and I think at some level, acting helped me channelise a lot of those emotions.” (...)
“I remember there was a scene in Maqbool where I watch my newborn from a little window frame in the hospital door. It was the last time I was going to see my child, and at the end of the scene a tear drop trickles down from the glass frame. Now that was not planned, that’s the kind of moment that just happens.” Though his canvas as an actor only expanded from there on, it was these moments of truth he says he strived to achieve with every role. When Ang Lee cast Irrfan in Life of Pi, he said of him, “I was always familiar with Irrfan’s work, so casting him was almost a no-brainer. He’s someone who surprises you every minute with his interpretation of the story and the character. And I discovered that after I watched The Namesake.”
Over the years, he has even been criticised by many for taking up small parts in massive Hollywood films. (...) But for Khan, it was about putting himself out there on sets that were alien to him. “When I do something like The Lunchbox, it’s highly exhausting and even boring because most of my scenes are with a sheet of paper or a dabba full of food. Then when I go and act in a superhero film in Hollywood, it’s a completely opposite experience. Both films shook me out of my comfort zone, asked me to look for new ways to say things, surprise myself. (...) It makes me happy when people outside India recognise my work, because at some level I am also able to change their idea about our cinema. Our stories are getting more real, our audience is changing and the world should know about it.”
Ask him if it’s extra pressure having to represent the country as an actor in places like film festivals at Cannes and Florence, and he says, “As an actor, the kind of emotion I create in a scene is relatable because I don’t rely on false perceptions. Similarly I don’t put up a face when I go abroad. It’s the one thing I strived for during my learning days. To find my truth. Even today when I stand on the podium with five other stalwarts, who I look up to, I try to remain true to myself and I guess that’s what they appreciate,” he says. He says he doesn’t change his approach when he works with a Ron Howard or a Tom Hanks because he believes he doesn’t need to. “Their world is different, but they hire me for what I bring to them, and if that changes I will cease to be myself.”
Among his biggest challenges as an actor is to keep his opinion and his craft separate. “Talvar was the kind of script that changed many of my opinions that were formed without full knowledge. We are quick to judge and succumb to hyped reality. As an actor I think it is important to be able to not fall prey to that, especially with a script inspired by reality.” That he has now mastered his craft is something everyone agrees on, except he himself. “I have moments of panic even today. There’s nothing known as mastery. You give people something they can take from, something aspirational, something inspiring, and that doesn’t always come methodically. You have to rely on instinct,” he adds.
Years ago his only dream was to present his mother with a bagful of money. Today things have changed. “Today I have changed, my mother has changed and so have my dreams. She will now ask me to keep the bag of money aside and spend some more time with her. Even now she may rebut me for something I would do, and I will still strive to gain her attention. That’s not the actor within, that’s just me.” We ask him if “Irrfan Khan can really do anything”, (...) and all he does is let out a silent smile. “I don’t want to be able to do everything. I want to create something, break it, create and then break some more. Why look at mastering anything? Life is perishable. You will anyway become a story in some time. So why not become a great one?” he asks'.
