Salman Khan continues to be mired in controversies, but that hasn’t stopped his movies from being superhits. The latest, Sultan, is his tenth consecutive film to have crossed the Rs 100-crore business mark
His wisecracks and his run-ins with the universally accepted norms of social demeanour notwithstanding, it is hard to ignore the kind of hold Abdul Rashid Salim Salman Khan has over the masses and how they react to him. Salman Khan's films (every Eid) generate the same hysteria and frenzy as do constant rumours of his marital status. The 51-year-old is Bollywood's eternal enfant terrible. He seems to have a love-hate relationship with the media -- whom he completely avoided in the aftermath of a controversial comment at a recently-held award function. Khan did open up eventually and said, “It is sad. And it confuses me. If I don’t say anything I am boring. If I say something then it becomes an issue and my people won’t like it. Yes, maybe I shouldn’t have said it, but I have a very bad knack for being misunderstood.”
Controversy’s favourite child
That Salman Khan and controversy go hand-in-hand is not news. The reactions to his being in the news range from strong to the banal not -again.
That being said, and not to take away anything from his knack for stirring up the hornet’s nest, Khan is also known for, in filmi language, his bada dil (big heart). I have been eyewitness to him exchanging his Seven For All Mankind jeans with a light-boy's faded pair because he needed it for a film role. In another instance, he gave his cycle (on which he had travelled from home to a studio) to a spotboy. The actor has also helped several newbies establish their careers in Bollywood; Himesh Reshammiya, Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Sajid-Wajid being some of them.
It is, perhaps, for this reason that Khan’s controversies don't dent the deity-like adulation he gets from his fans. It is this fan following that has made him the unbeatable king of the box-office today, with back-to-back blockbusters such as Bajrangi Bhaijaan and now, Sultan.
Sultan of the box-office
His latest film, Sultan, earned Rs 80 crore within two days of its release. The film has already gone down in history as the highest opener of 2016, and is also Salman Khan's 10th consecutive film to have crossed the Rs 100-crore business mark (an unrivalled feat in Bollywood), thereby cementing the unrivalled status as the most bankable star of Bollywood.
"It is nice that despite everything, despite your flaws, people who love you love your work. And it is even better when people who don't like you also appreciate the hard work you put in," says Khan.
Elaborating on his role in Sultan, he says, “The film is in chapters. It is a fragmented journey of the character — he is a legend; then he goes through a low period but rises.” One of the reasons Khan agreed to do the movie was to challenge himself as an actor — to see whether he could pull it off. “It’s the toughest role I have played — both emotionally and physically. It is a very demanding character,” he says, explaining how the role was not only gruelling physically, but the emotional inputs it required were intense.
“I had to look like a wrestler, and move like one. My fans would probably like me anyway, but I wanted to impress wrestling fans as well," says Khan. The superstar also got a taste of the hysteria firsthand when he shot on-location in the villages of Punjab and Haryana. “I am the last person to feel shy about taking my shirt off. But this was something else. I had to wear a langot (loincloth), which made me feel so looked at, and I don’t say this in a particularly happy way. I felt so uncomfortable when bystanders, on-lookers and sometimes even extras would whistle at me or make cat calls in that state of undress, if you can call it that,” says the actor, with characteristic candour.
Khan also had to delve deep into his histrionic prowess to portray the emotions that his troubled character goes through. Elaborating, he says, “The range of emotions to be displayed can make you go over the top. But thanks to the persistence of my director Ali Abbas Zafar who, very sweetly, would keep egging me to do better by saying, ‘Just one more take, sir’, and I would have to comply.”
Always up to a challenge — that is how this Khan has always been. At an earlier interview, he recalled how he learnt to swim: “My first swimming pool was a well in Indore — a watery cave I shared one afternoon, with a fish, two turtles and a water snake — when a relative pushed me off the edge. A rope was tied to my leg to make sure I didn’t drown. Someone shouted instructions down at me, and left. This is what my life has been like. I do things before I learn them.”
Considering how hard Khan says he worked on the movie, you would think he would take a break. But you’d be wrong. Work on his next film — Kabir Khan’s Tubelight, to be shot in Ladakh - is already afoot. Khan is also gearing up for his third association with the prestigious banner of Yash Raj Films, and he will start shooting for Dhoom 4 from mid-2017. Reportedly, the film will go on floors by mid-2017 and will be shot entirely in North America.
So that holiday in London, a place Salman is fond of, will have to wait. “I really want to cycle around Hyde Park,” says the superstar, who is de-stressing with a baby for now. His sister Arpita Khan Sharma's son Ahil is the apple of his eye. As if on cue, he is called away from the interview as Ahil has woken up and is clamouring for his famous uncle's attention.