Imran Khan at Taj Bengal. Picture: Rashbehari Das

He’s digging into a plate of pasta at 6pm. “That’s my lunch… I haven’t eaten all day,” he smiles. Imran Khan last came to Calcutta four-and-a-half years ago. “But like today, I was promoting a film then and had no chance of seeing the city,” he rues. t2 caught up with the Delhi Belly heart-throb in his suite at Taj Bengal before he headed out to promote his August gangster flick Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai… Again at the IPL-6 opening in Eden Gardens.

You’ve told us earlier that promoting a film is more strenuous than making it...

Oh yes! We were shooting all night… packed up around five this morning… went home… slept a few hours… caught a flight and came here. It’s been terrible (smiles). No matter what the film is, you always end up doing the same thing… you go to the hotel and do a whole bunch of interviews, then there will be a mall visit, then some more brand promotions in a store in the mall and then you go back to the airport. Promotions are so strenuous nowadays… promoting a film usually takes a couple of months out of your life.

The international circuits are even more fun (smiles sarcastically). You take a night flight out of Bombay and land in London early in the morning; you go to the hotel and shower and breakfast around 8am, you are on the road… you go to a couple of radio stations, a few TV stations, one theatre and a couple of malls. You then take a night flight to New York and do the same routine there. That night, you take a flight to Dubai and do the same thing for the third consecutive day. It’s awesome! (Rolls his eyes)

That sounds so painful! How do you keep going?

The first time I did it, I was shattered! I was like: ‘It’s tough being an actor. How can they make us slog like this?’ But now, I am used to it. I take short naps whenever I can. Just before you came in, I took a power nap for 10 minutes! Making a film and then promoting it literally feels like war… you eat when you get the chance, you sleep when you get the chance, you even use the loo when you get a chance! You never know when you will be able to do it again.

You’ve said Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai... Again is going to be your biggest film yet...

Yes, this is a bigger film than anything I have done before. It’s a sequel to a big film (Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai). Everyone associated with the film… from Milan (Luthria, the director) and Ekta (Kapoor, the producer) to right down the order knows that this is one of the most awaited films this year. The risk that you run with a sequel is that from the moment you announce it, it’s always in the news. You always have to think of ways to keep it from getting stale in the audience’s minds.

You apparently loved the first film so much that you couldn’t give up on the sequel…

Yes, the first film was damn good! To be frank, I had some reservations when the role was offered to me. I didn’t know whether it was the kind of film I wanted to get into. I met Milan initially with some hesitation, but when I read the script, I found it impossible to put down. I went through it from start to finish in an hour-and-a-half. I called up Milan and told him: ‘Dude, this script is incredible’. He was on a flight the next morning to Rajkot where I was shooting for Matru (Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola). It is a massively entertaining and engaging script. The romance is palpable, the action is very intense and I found myself entertained in a way that I am normally not.

Not to speak ill of anyone, but I find that in our films, a lot of the younger writers and directors tend to shy away from emotion. ‘Nahin yeh bahut filmi ho jaayega’ and so they tone it down, when actually they should turn the volume up. To be fair, this has been true for many of my films as well where the young urban guy thinks that to be cool, you can’t show your emotions. What I really liked in Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai… Again is that they have ratcheted up the emotions. As a result, when there is a sad moment, you find yourself teary-eyed; when there is an action scene, you grip your seat handle, tense. I loved that.

Also, it’s set in the ’80s and those are the films I grew up watching. My stars were Anil Kapoor and Jackie Shroff and then Aamir (Khan) and Salman (Khan) who came in towards the end of the decade. These were the guys who I thought were cool… I used to copy their style. I remember Jackie was this big style icon then… I loved the bandanas he wore in Baap Numbri Beta Dus Numbri. I wanted to use it in this film, but it didn’t work out. So, the idea with Once Upon… was to capture the coolness of that time. I really loved doing it.

Are you a fan of cop-criminal dramas?

It’s a genre that’s always engaged the audience. As a viewer, you know all the tropes that will be present in a gangster film. So, for a filmmaker it’s easier to set a film in that world and make it tense and thrilling. So, whether it’s Hindi films or Hollywood, the cops-and-gangsters thing is always fun. But this film is a little less cops-gangsters and a lot more gangsters-gangsters, actually.

How was it sharing screen space with Akshay Kumar?

Akshay’s a guy who’s impossible to dislike. I never knew him much earlier, apart from a hello and a handshake at social dos. I just love him… he’s such a fun, happy and positive guy. There’s always a joke… a one-liner… a funny anecdote up his sleeve. You spend five minutes with him and you will fall in love with the man.

You’ve worked with all her contemporaries — Deepika Padukone, Anushka Sharma and Sonam Kapoor — what took you so long to star with Sonakshi Sinha in a film?

Sonakshi I knew since the time she was shooting Dabangg, her first film. I was shooting for Break Ke Baad (co-starring Deepika) in the same studio. I have always been very close to Salman and at lunch time everyday, he would literally summon me to go and have a massive lunch with him (laughs). So, that’s where I got to know Sonakshi. I have always really liked her, but somehow it took a while to get together professionally.

How important is it for you to break the ice with a co-star?

In our space, we actually spend more time with work people than with friends and family. When you wake up early and drag your ass to work and labour under the hot sun for 18 hours, it does become easier if you like and have respect for the people you are working with. But then, we don’t have the time to really catch up before or after work. So whatever ice has to be broken is on set itself.

You took a different route with Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola earlier this year. How much did its failure set you back?

I am picking and choosing films that interest me. The truth is, no one has a damn clue which film will work and which won’t. With Matru… I had a great role, a great set-up and a great director in Vishal Bhardwaj and it was a film that I felt I wanted to watch. What more could I want? When you sign a film, you have no idea how it’s going to work out. You have to go by your gut: ‘Okay, this guy looks like he knows what he’s doing,’ is what you can only think. You enter with the best of intentions and a lot of hope. That’s all you have to go on.

There must have been times where a film didn’t turn out the way you thought it would.

Yes, of course. But then that’s part and parcel of the business. Surprisingly, it doesn’t hurt that much if you have enjoyed the process of making the film… got to go to a nice place and met some nice people on shoot, stuff like that. But if you are miserable while making the film and have hated the guys on it and then the film flops, then it’s terrible. You’ve just wasted a chunk of your life. Fortunately, I haven’t been robbed that badly so far (laughs).