Place: Mehboob Studio, Mumbai. Time: 2pm.
t2 finds itself in: Sidharth Malhotra’s plush vanity van.
A star’s vanity van is almost always abuzz. People walk in and out, star managers discuss everything from movie schedules to travel plans to outfit of the day, and coffee is the poison of choice for almost everyone.
But on a hot Wednesday afternoon, Sidharth Malhotra’s van is eerily quiet. The 31-year-old hunk — who made us sit up with Student of the Year and felled us with Ek Villain and Hasee Toh Phasee — is under the weather and has cancelled all his interviews for the day. All, but not his chat with t2.
As we walk into the well-lit van done up in blues and whites, Sidharth — dressed cool and casual in ripped denims and a white sweatshirt — sits on a sofa, sipping from a flask. “I love your hair colour… I wish I could get that colour too,” he smiles, before settling down for a chat on his March 18 film Kapoor & Sons and, yes, his rumoured romance with Alia Bhatt.
Promoting a film while you are unwell can be quite a pain, right?
It is! But then, it’s a necessity. But it’s gotten a lot better now. Karan (Johar) and Dharma Productions have decided to now keep it much tighter and shorter. We only started promotions on March 2, which only leaves us with 15 days of promotions… that I believe is just apt. More than this, I believe, is never reflected in ticket sales. Aisa nahin hai ki aap itne mahiney promote karenge toh zyada badi opening milegi. Your box office only depends on whether you have a good film or a bad film. Anyway, people see so much of us all the time that there’s now no real enigma attached to watching stars here and there. I am just hoping that the window for promotions comes down next time to five days (laughs and winks). That will be so much cooler!
Your trailer and songs have ensured that it’s half the battle won for you guys anyway…
Ya! Whatever experience I have had over the years has convinced me that the first trailer is the most important promotional unit that goes out to the audience. As you said, half the battle is won for us here because people have unanimously loved our trailer. I remember long time back, in a social gathering, Mr Aamir Khan also said the same thing. He said: ‘The audience decides within the first minutes of watching your trailer ki yeh picture dekhni hai ya nahin’. We have a great response to our trailer and we are taking it further with our music… and us singing and dancing in colleges! (Laughs and shakes his head wryly)
Hopefully, we will have a good Friday-Saturday-Sunday. Honestly, Kapoor & Sons is not the kind of film where we are obsessing about numbers, per se. The investment isn’t really high… it’s purely a content-driven film. The audience won’t be in awe when they walk in… there aren’t any larger-than-life stars or costumes or locations.
The film looks and feels very real...
It definitely is very real. We are hoping people will associate with the film and come out feeling all the emotions that we want them to feel… that we felt while we were making this film. We want them to feel that they are walking into their own house… it’s got a very middle-class feel and a majority of us are from upper middle-class families.
The film focuses on a dysfunctional family. We aren’t asking whether your family throws vases at each other like the Kapoors do, but did you identify with it in anyway?
(Laughs) Every family is dysfunctional… every family! What’s a perfect family? There isn’t one. I grew up in a household in Delhi that’s very similar to my family in Kapoor & Sons. I have an older brother like in the film (Fawad Khan plays Sidharth’s older brother), my parents are there and we had my Naani staying with us. My Chachu stays in the floor above us. It’s a typical Punjabi household where people have issues and fights — sometimes you want to kill your own family! — (laughs out loud) — but the next day, you are again socialising and eating at the same table. Being a part of a Punjabi family is a roller-coaster ride… you can’t predict anything! That’s what we have shown in the film… lots of fights and fisticuffs, but there’s also unflinching love and respect. It’s very difficult to actually say what a family should be like.
We have made this family (led by a patriarch played by Rishi Kapoor, warring parents in Rajat Kapoor and Ratna Pathak Shah and estranged brothers Sidharth and Fawad) like a modern family — a little dysfunctional, of course — where we have our good days, but there’s also a lot of angst from the past. There’s also a nice message at the end about the importance of communicating with your family, and at the right time… sometimes, you keep your anger bottled up for far too long and then your ego destroys all relationships close to you.
How much of Arjun is you?
A lot, actually. As an actor, I didn’t have to try and put on anything. Arjun is a lot of the young, goofy boy I was until a few years ago. I’ve tried to bring that out… his body language is very, very similar to mine. Very lazy, but I would like to call it cool! (Winks and laughs)
Playing him must have been a welcome change from the Angry Young Man in Brothers…
Oh, big time, big time! I am angsty here too, but in a different way. Since I am the younger brother here, I feel —like most younger brothers do — that the elder one is favoured more (smiles). You know, right? Or like if the elder one is successful, then the least successful one in the family — which is almost always the younger one — gets all the taanaas. So I am basically the underdog in this family… the kid whose parents don’t have any confidence in his future.
The out-takes from set — cricket matches to music sessions — show that you guys had a lot of fun shooting this film…
My favourite co-star is Geishu, who was our dog in the film! (Laughs) And yes, we played a lot of cricket. A plus of doing an ensemble film is that you aren’t required every day and every hour on set. I was the first guy to get everyone — from the actors to the light boys to the costume people — to make teams and start playing gully cricket. It was super fun! Also, coming from a film like Brothers where I had to work out post pack-up, there was no pressure here. Actually, I hardly worked out in this film because I wanted this guy to look as regular as possible. He’s a not-so-successful writer who isn’t very diligent about anything in life, least of all a perfect physique.
I would cycle to set… Coonoor is a great place to cycle. I also took horse-riding lessons when I had days off. Shooting this film was a very fulfilling experience because I got to do a lot of things for the first time, off set. We started playing poker together… we had a great set of actors who bonded well because there was no ego and no politics. What also kept us together all the time is that Coonoor is a very small place… there are only two restaurants to go to. We were there for 40 days and luckily, we found entertainment within our own unit. We chatted after pack-up, we played games, we were family during the day and that carried on even off camera.
I did some really random things… I had never seen a bison up close and everyone kept talking about the bisons in the Coonoor tea estates. And I was like: ‘Dude, I need to see a bison before I leave Coonoor!’ One night, I took a couple of torches and with some ADs (assistant directors) we ventured into the jungle to locate bisons. The problem is that we flashed so much of our torches at a bison that it ran towards us and we had to flee for our lives! (Laughs out loud and doubles up on the sofa) It was so scary and yet so much fun! Kapoor & Sons has been my best on-set experience.
Your female viewership will be divided this time because of another heart-throb — Fawad Khan…
Oh ya! And I felt that even during shoot, but there’s a divide here, you know. The 35-plus women would move towards Fawad and the slightly younger ones would come for me (smiles). Some extremely mature women — I would call them Aunties, out of respect — would call me ‘Sidharth beta’, but for Fawad, it would end at just ‘Fawad’ (laughs). That speaks a lot about Fawad’s range and reach in the female fan-following department (winks). I have pulled his leg so much regarding this now that every time he sees a female fan, he wants to run for cover! But let me tell you, he also enjoys it. Don’t believe him when he says that he doesn’t care much about it… believe me, he does!
But he’s a great guy. One word I have learnt from him is ‘masla’… it’s a generic word he uses for everything…
‘Kabhi masla ho raha hai’… ‘Kabhi masla nahin ho raha hai’… ‘Masla aa raha hai… jaa raha hai!’ (Laughs) I found it very entertaining. I met him on set… I hadn’t watched any of his films before, but our energies just matched. He’s very, very professional and open to suggestions, but he minds his own business. He won’t meddle in anyone’s business. I took him out for dinner in Bombay before we left for Coonoor and he was quite reserved. But once we hit Coonoor, FK became a totally different guy — the first to enter our post-pack-up parties and the last to leave! (Laughs) With him, I am like I am with my older brother who is six years older than me.
There’s been so much conjecture about you and Alia Bhatt being a couple. Why not do the cool thing and say you guys are in a relationship?
(Pauses and then smiles) It’s a very personal space and just because I am an actor it doesn’t mean that every part of my life has to be open for public consumption. We are great friends and co-stars who share good chemistry on screen. Alia and I started our careers together with the same film (Student of the Year) and we are close. People keep asking us these questions and though I would get irritated earlier, now I know it comes with the territory (laughs). A little more maturity and experience has helped in handling all this… I have learnt to filter information. I have decided not to waste my energy on answering everyone. I now keep my cool.
Not always though, if the recent Twitter spat with KRK is anything to go by…
(Smiles) That actually was a build-up of many things. And me losing my cool [Sidharth called out Kamaal Rashid Khan on Twitter after KRK passed some lewd comments about a magazine photoshoot featuring Alia and Sidharth] is justified because he represents all that is wrong in our country. In hindsight, I regret reacting to him [‘Sir! We try very hard to tell u to shut up but u keep tweeting!’ read Sidharth’s tweet to KRK], because it just adds to publicity for him. Everyone can talk about our films, but no one can pass cheap comments on physicality and personality. That’s something I won’t tolerate, whether it’s about me or Alia.
Great smile: That’s the first thing I notice in a girl.
Sunny personality: I don’t like very serious women.
Good-natured: She should be nice to people around her, especially animals. I judge people, not only women, on the basis of how they treat animals.
Confident, but childlike: She should be very sure of herself. That really attracts me in a woman, but I like those who also manage to retain their innocence.
