Farhan Akhtar ka dil kya chahta hai? “Well, I want to direct my next film. But since there’s some way to go before I start I’ve decided to face the camera.”

Farhan, the Dil Chahta Hai and Lakshya director who’s in primetime limelight now, has agreed to play one of the leads in debutant director Anand Surapur’s The Fakir. “It’s a very interesting, very down-to-earth, rooted-to-reality kind of script, just my kind of film where I don’t have to ‘act-act’?you know what I mean?”

Farhan’s wife has given him a shiny new haircut for the film. “It’s really funny how my haircuts have turned me into an anonymous soul. I change my hairstyle so often that people have a hard time recognising me. For The Fakir I’ve got my haircut the way I think the character should look?. It’s basically a story about the search for life and how the truth about existence comes to us at the most unexpected junctures of life.”

The TV anchor and actor Anu Kapoor plays the other lead. “It’s basically a film about these two characters. Kamal Sidhu also plays a part. But that’s it. No other major character. I like the intimacy of the script. And I like the director’s approach.”

Director Anand Surapur originally wanted to cast Saif Ali Khan in the role. “But that didn’t work out, for whatever reason,” explains Farhan. “So when Anand came to me I immediately said ‘yes’. I’ve known him for a long time.”

And how’s the experience of facing the camera? “I think I’m doing okay. The director seems to be happy and I don’t feel stupid about what I’ve done so far. I’m truly enjoying the experience. Acting is truly liberating.”

Thus begins Farhan’s career as an actor. He was earlier to make his debut in a film called Honeymoon to be directed by his former assistant Reema. Rituparno Ghosh had also approached Farhan to act in a film. “But I guess I was destined to be in The Fakir. It’s a film in ‘Hinglish’, for want of a better term,” Farhan says, as nervous as schoolboy about to attend first-day classes.