He is there, but not right there. Emraan Hashmi speaks on why success eludes him
Emraan Hashmi
Emraan Hashmi’s irreverent attitude could be dangerous for a man who has given five consecutive flops. But, he says, he is naturally defiant. When we meet him, his droopy-eyed gaze says it all. “You never get used to the exhaustion of promotions,” he is quick to add. But the man who has lost his mojo, has no other option. He shirks off the weariness and opens up about why he isn’t the massy actor he is made out to be and his plans to foray into production.
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You have not tasted success in your last few outings.
When things fail, we all live in hope that going back to the basics can revive the magic. As actors, we have to remain unattached to the failure and success of our films; at least make that effort. You have given your best and then the ball is in the audience’s court.
Your taste in films is different from the kind you act in.
I always knew what I didn’t want to do. Typical rom-coms were an absolute no-no for me. I am a bit of a freak when it comes to films. I like these immoral, unethical characters I play.
They are the likeable wrong men, irreverent and yet they have a certain charm about them. I love dark roles and doing genres like horror that actors don’t touch easily. I have done what I believe in.
Are you at peace with your choices?
I feel stereotyped. Sometimes it is tiring to live up to the image I had carved as a youngster. The industry allows you a limited bandwidth to function within. You cannot easily tip over and start doing something else. This problem is not peculiar to India or Bollywood alone. But, at least, Hollywood allows you more breathing space to try your hand at different things. We cater to the audience’s taste that still wants heroes to rescue damsels-in-distress. How much of that can you do? After a point, it gets repetitive, hence, pushing the audience into a Catch-22 situation. Over time, actors learn what tricks to use, which buttons to press and what reactions to evoke from people.
Every actor has his share of regrets. What are yours?
I am stuck with the wrong target audience. For the first six years of my career, the kind of films I was doing was the exact opposite of what I liked watching. People perceived me as an entirely different person. I was looked upon as this actor, who talks only in Hindi, cannot utter a word of English. People were surprised when they met me because I didn’t fit their expectations. I did films that pitched to the front-row audience, because that was my base. But I ended up getting stuck in the rut and couldn’t deviate. I saw different kind of cinema and couldn’t do those films for a living. When I tried that, a lot of them didn’t do well. Most of my successful films are for the mass audience. God forbid, if they ever meet me they will feel I am a cheat. Something doesn’t add up in that equation. I am waiting for a script and film that caters to a pan-audience.
When you tried to break off from your serial kisser image, the films didn’t work.
May be if a Ghanchakkar were made today, it would have worked. Failure always hurts. It throws you into self-doubt that probably you should’ve done a film differently or it shouldn’t have been done at all. But we are all in for a gamble. I don’t mind failing but I do mind not taking risks.
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