‘No one knows what’s going on in Farhan’s mind’

IMAGE: Farhan Akhtar. Photograph: Kind courtesy Farhan Akhtar/Instagram

Javed Akhtar feels his son Farhan has been let down by some of the scripts that he has accepted as an actor.

“If you look at Farhan’s performance on Rock On!! and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, you will see an effortlessness that is hard to find in our cinema,” the proud father tells Subhash K Jha, as his son turns 50 on January 9.

“We, as a movie making industry, prefer our actors to indulge in overstatement. Farhan is a subtle actor. He believes in understatement. In some cases, his performances have been let down by the scripts that were meant to support him. An actor can only excel if the script supports him,” he adds.

 

IMAGE: Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan and Akshaye Khanna in Farhan Akhtar’s directorial debut Dil Chahta Hai.

As a film-maker, Javedsaab feels his son is a game-changer.

“Dil Chahta Hai burst on the screen with a completely new language and an untried concept of friendship. I can’t wait to see Farhan direct again. We are a collaborating on a project. Hopefully, it would live up to the audiences’ and my expectations of Farhan.”

IMAGE: Happy family: Farhan Akhtar with Shabana Azmi, Javed Akhtar, Zoya Akhtar, Honey Irani, Tanvi Azmi and Shibani Dandekar. Photograph: Kind courtesy Farhan Akhtar/Instagram

Javedsaab also praises daughter Zoya’s proclivity to humanise her characters.

“If you look at Anil Kapoor in Zoya’s Dil Dhadakne Do, he is not a very good husband or father. Yet, Zoya never allows us to hate the character. She instills a core of compassion even to the character of Ranveer Singh’s father in Gully Boy. The man is a wife-beater and he roughs up his son. But his anger and violence make sense in the world he inhabits.”

When asked to compare his children, Javedsaab says, “In many ways, they are the same. But Farhan is far less forthcoming than Zoya. No one knows what’s going on in Farhan’s mind.”