Salman Khan interview

Salman Khan was at his candid and entertaining best at the music launch of Ready. His witty answers had the audience in splits. He also showed his magnanimous side by felicitating the workers and managers at Film City. Excited about his next release Ready,the superstar is pulling out all the stops to reach out to the masses. In an exclusive tete-e-tete, Salman talks about the song ‘Character Dheela Hai’, the kind of films he makes and more..


The song ‘Character Dheela Hai’ is becoming a rage. How did the song come about?
‘Character Dheela Hai’ was Asin’s idea so there was no way I could refuse the heroine of the film? (Laughs) ‘Character Dheela’ is mostly used in a negative manner and Anees bhai wanted to use the phrase in a positive way. Anees said that people look at others and say that their character is dheela when they are the ones who actually need to work on their own character. It is not fair that woh kare toh raas leela aur mein karu toh character dheela!

Personally, my character is less dheela but mera average bahut bura hai. I am 46 now!

Your movies - Wanted, Ready or Bodyguard are all remakes of the South. Are you going to continue with this trend?
Good movies, whether they are from the South or from Mumbai, will work. We do not relate to Hollywood movies so there is no point in remaking them. The movies being made these days, have one gag from a French film, one action scene from an Ethiopian film, and one character from an old film. This is usually the case unless the film is made by a writer-director. The South has also remade our movies such as 3 Idiots, Dabangg, Deewar, andHaathi Mere Saathi, among others.

Earlier, when my father used to write, the heroes used to be the strong and central characters lending the presence of heroism in movies. In the South, heroism still exists but I felt that it no longer existed in the films made in Mumbai. So I wanted to bring back the quintessential hero on screen. Whether the hero was doing action, comedy, or drama, I wanted to make sure that people remember the hero when they leave the theatre which is why I am doing such films. Now which better hero than me? (Laughs)
Do you think Ready will be a bigger hit than Dabangg?
I don’t know whether or not Ready will do as well as Dabangg, but I have to spread awareness about the movie. It is releasing on June 3, 2011 and people should be convinced enough to go and see it. After that, it depends on the audience whether they like it or not.

We make every movie hoping that it will be better than Mughal-E-Azam, but that does not happen. We do not think of making the biggest flop film of all time. We do not think that aisi bekaar picture benaye ki theatre mein ek kutta bhi na ho. (Laughs) I am saying this about my films! Everybody’s intention is to make good films but sometimes movies do not click.Ready, insha Allah will click.

In ‘Character dheela hai’, you have recreated sequences from the songs of Sholay, Mughal-e-Azam, and Shree 420. Tell us more about that.
There is no way you can do justice to those movies. Nobody can look the way Dharmendrasaab looked in Sholay, Raj Kapoor is a legend, and so is Yusuf saab. I just saw Ganga-Jamuna four years ago for the fourth time. Although I must add, I did not understand it the first time I saw it. Yusuf saab was brilliant and we will never be as good as him.

This song is our way of paying tribute to Raj Saheb, Dilip Saheb and Dharamji. We are not one per cent close to their performances. Besides, our intention is not to hurt anyone. They are all our seniors and we have grown up seeing their films and have learnt a lot from them. We have not done anything that would disrespect them and their work towards cinema.

You are the top-most bachelor in the country. What do you have to say about that?
I will change my bachelor status soon!

You have included ‘Munni’ and ‘Sheila’ in ‘Character dheela hai’. So how have they reacted to the song?
There was Munni, there was Sheila, now we have done ‘Character dheela’!

Prabhudeva had a problem choreographing ‘Jalwa’ during Wanted. Was dancing forReady easier?
I thought I was doing the steps perfectly, even better than Prabhudeva himself. But he had a problem with me! I am a great dancer and have no problems with dancing. I think Prabhudeva could not digest the fact that I was doing the steps better than him, and that is why he wanted retakes. (Laughs) For Ready, Mudassar Khan and I wanted to do steps that people could easily remember and replicate and I am happy that the songs and steps have already become popular.