“Fame is just a byproduct and hence you should not get swayed by fame,” so said BOMAN IRANI while speaking to JYOTHI VENKATESH
In this exclusive interview at Pune where he delivered the Vijay Tendulkar Memorial Lecture about Acting and himself, Boman Irani reveals exclusively that he could succeed in making the transition to acting in spite of being afflicted in dyslexia.
You have made your debut with the film Mehta Boys. Who shaped your vision as a filmmaker?
As a teenager, I had the privilege of watching the play Ghashiram Kotwal. I would say that my thinking has been shaped by various people including Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani , Vijay Tendulkar and last but not the least Dr Jabbar Patel.
How easy was it for you to take up acting at a very late stage of your life?
I was born after the demise of my father. I had a very squeaky voice and lacked confidence. On top of that, I used to stammer very badly. If I am revered as an actor today, the entire credit ought to go to my dear mother, because it was she who had literally forced me to go and see a film every day when I was in school.
Do you remember the films which you had watched while you were in school?
Yes. I remember having watched Funny Girl not just once or twice but 36 times at Strand in Colaba, when I was only 11-year-old
What made your mom decide to send you to watch movies every day?
My mother had noticed that I had a dyslexia of numbers because I could not remember numbers when there was a prize distribution function in my school where I was constantly smiling on the dais.
Is it true that you worked in a wafer shop too?
Yes. We had a shop which was selling wafers. Our wafer shop was adjacent to the theatre Novelty and you could hear the soundtrack of films running in the theater if you keep your ears glued to the wall of your house. I remember having watched the film El Cid, which was running in Novelty by holding my uncle Farood’s hand, who was blind.
When did it dawn on you that you could be a good story teller?
I realized that I could end up as a very good story teller the day when I narrated the story of a film that Farood Uncle and I saw and he started crying after he listened to my narration.
Did you achieve success overnight?
Before becoming an actor in films, I had also tried acting on the stage. I did the English play I Am Not Bajirao with Sudhir Joshi. We opened it not in the Experimental theater but at Tata Theatre where it ran for 10 years. The play instilled in me confidence that if you have the courage of conviction, you can even produce a play which can turn out to be a big blockbuster. I also did a play called Gandhi for director Feroz Khan. I lost 30 kgs to get into my character with effortless ease. Acting, I feel, is all about lying. A good liar can definitely be a very good actor. I worked at the shop for 14 years and then became a photographer. I also worked as a waiter at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai before I discovered my true passion of acting at the age of 35 and jumped into the arena of acting. There is absolutely no magic overnight. Do you know, it took me almost 12 years to get my debut directorial film Mehta Boys commissioned. For newcomers, it would be even more difficult.
Did you make Mehta Boys on a tiny budget?
Yes. My film Mehta Boys was made on a very tiny budget. But then so was a film like Munna Boy MBBS. Everything is about vision and art. The biggest lesson that I learnt while making Munna Boys MBBS was that I should never crib about my budget. I also learnt that one should not at all chase fame because it is only a byproduct. (Mehta Boys is directed by Boman Irani)
Is body language very important when you set out to make a film?
Body language is only the icing on the cake. The backstory is very important when it comes to a film and the writer should give his characters’ a lot of flaws to make them more humane.
In spite of being a Parsi, you do not seem to have a bad diction. How?
Drop the accent, the guy who interviewed me for a job at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel told me and advised me to work my way hard up to the top.
Boman Irani’s first break in Bollywood
You had made your debut with the Ram Madhvani directorial Let’s Talk.
Yes. It was ad filmmaker Ram Madhvani who offered to cast me in his film Let’s Talk. It was made in just seven days. It was after the release of that film, the producer-director Vidhu Vinod Chopra offered to cast me in his film Munnabhai MBBS by giving me a cheque of Rs 2 lakhs. In fact, Vidhu Vinod Chopra sent me to director Raju Hirani and Raju had narrated the subject to me with a lot of conviction.
Tell me more about Munnabhai MBBS
We worked on the film with absolutely no money. Do you believe it, we shot the film on a wedding stage after the wedding ceremony was over? When the film was released though it did not open to large numbers, a lady black marketer predicted that it would be a big blockbuster.
You have also acted in a Marathi film. Tell me about it.
When Priyanka Chopra and her mother Madhu Chopra decided to produce the Marathi film Ventilator, they asked me to play the role of a doctor in it. I played the role of a Parsi doctor in it and it was well appreciated.
