‘Break Ke Baad’ would resonate with young Indians: Imran Khan (Interview)

WASHINGTON - It may sound like yet another romantic comedy from Bollywood, but young Indians at home and abroad would find in “Break Ke Baad” a story that resonates with them, says lead star Imran Khan.

“What I like is, it’s a young urban story, but at its heart it has a classical romantic element to it,” Imran, who was in New York to promote the film set for release in the US Nov 24, told IANS over the phone.

One of the rare Bollywood films that opens in the US before India because of Thanksgiving holiday here, “it’s about a couple that breaks up, what happens when they are separated and how they are going to grow,” said the 27-year-old.

“Both have got to start to figure out what to do in life and who they want to be in life,” said Imran, who was born in Wisconsin, US, to a Bengali-Indian American father and a sister of Bollywood star Aamir Khan.

It was “very enjoyable” working with a very young team right from director Danish Aslam to co-star Deepika Padukone, and he “became a very close friend” with Danish, Deepika, producer Kunal Kohli and all others involved in the making of the film.

“So I will always really cherish the memories of making this film.”

“Deepika was a very accommodating and a very supportive co-star,” Imran said. “I really enjoy working with her because as an actor I believe that whoever is acting with me, the better they are, the better my performance becomes. I think her performance made my performance much better.”

But working with some of the senior Bollywood actors like Navin Nischol and Sharmila Tagore “was honestly a little intimidating”, Imran said. “But they were both very sweet and very gentle and very supportive of co-stars.”

“So, after a first couple of hours, you just see them as actors and forget the stars that they are and feel I can also act with them,” he said. “But to me it takes a little time to get over that initial nervousness.”

The film will be released in India Friday.

Imran said he was also very impressed by Danish. “This is Danish’s first film as a director, but I think he is an extremely calm and confident director.”

“The thing is when you are working on a set, 15 things can go wrong every day. But no matter what happened, what the situation was, he always took it in his stride.”

Imran said he fully supported Danish’s rule of not allowing anyone to use a cell phone on the sets as films are these days shot in sync sound, which means the sound that’s recorded on the sets is used in the film.

If you have cell phones ringing it’s also very distracting for an actor,” he said. “All of my films, be it ‘I Hate Love Stories’, ‘Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na’, ‘Break Ke Baad’, even my forthcoming films, they are all shot with sync sound; so it’s becoming standard practice.”

One day Imran would like to get behind the camera too as a director.

“Certainly it’s something I am very interested in and would like to do in life,” though he has no such plans in the near future. “Right now as an actor I am getting to do some good work with people whom I like.”

Does he have a dream film in mind? “No, that would really depend on when I decide to make a film, what kind of story I have in mind.”

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)