Interview: Rahul Khanna
“I get a variety of offers”
How many films with Deepa Mehta now?
Two. After Earth I've done Bollywood / Hollywood. It has Lisa Ray Moushumi Chatterji and Kulbhushan Kharbanda, me. I play a young dotcom millionaire who lives in Canada who’s a cross between family traditional values and his North American upbringing.
How happy are you with your career at present?
It’s good. I’d like to be doing more but good roles are few and far between.
What kind of roles are offered to you today-you seem to have some baggage that you do a certain kind of films-d’you get hardcore commercial roles viz running round trees etc?
I get a variety of offers-they’re not limited to one kind of film.
What would you like to do?
I’d like to work with good filmmakers good directors, good scripts-I’m not particular about this kind or that kind of role.
You are off to Canada we hear?
Yes my last film with Deepa Mehta opens the Perspective Canada section and I’m going for the premiere. It’s great fun being there where everyone breathes and eats films. The whole atmosphere has good vibes. I look forward to it. Just as I looked forward to working with Deepa again-you know when I did Earth it was quite a disciplines focused shoot but Bollywood. Hollywood was just pure fun-it was a light script and we had great fun doing it. So I got to see Deepa in two totally different films.
You’ve worked with Aamir-was he really fussy like everyone says?
No-not any more finicky than anyone else on the film. He has very high standards but then I have the same standards and others I’ve worked with also have the same standard. If you’re asking if he’s more so –no I don’t think so? If others say that about him then they don’t have very high standards themselves. And they’re threatened by him.
When you worked with him how much did you enjoy it?
Oh I loved my role absolutely but Aamir and I didn’t have much interaction in that sense except for a few scenes. But I enjoyed hanging around with him on the sets. He did not play any jokes because the film had a somber subject, which did not lend itself to fun of the practical joke kind. But he knows some good mind games to pass the time on the sets and he taught me these.