Right, mate? Javed Jaffery is high on the success of his cameo in Salaam Namaste

When in the Rome, do the Romans. It may not have exactly attained cult status like a ?I will make an offer he can?t refuse? from The Godfather or maybe the ?I will be back? line from Terminator, but Javed Jaffery?s version of the timeless proverb in Salaam Namaste has sunk straight into daily lingo.

?After a long time, a small character has become so popular with the masses,? says Jaffery, whose father Jagdeep had made Sholay?s Soorma Bhopali an unforgettable element of Indian film lore three decades back. ?The response has been very good within and outside the industry. People have been mouthing the dialogues. Many actors have called up to say how much they loved the cameo. Shah Rukh, for instance, hugely loved it.?

And Javed didn?t just mouth the dialogues in a way only he can, he also came up with a lot of those witty one-liners. ?They (the makers) had the role written all right ? the Crocodile Dundee character who thinks he?s a dude,? Javed explains.

?But since the dialogue writer didn?t travel with us to Australia, the director (Siddharth Anand) and I sat together and came up with many of the lines like ?mujhe kaamwali auratein bahut pasand hai? and ?wife working and husband jerking?. They were done on the sets and all impromptu. I tried to bring myself as much as I could to the character.?

Even imitating Feroze Khan was Javed?s idea. ?Come on, he is the original cowboy of India,? he laughs. ?And I did not insult him or something. It was very much a tribute, like a cartoonist would use popular figures in his drawings.?

So will Salaam Namaste be a new lease of life for Javed Jaffery the actor who had debuted in Subhash Ghai?s Meri Jung but lost his way in the middle? ?I am doing some more movies,? Javed reveals. ?There?s a comedy called Gabbarsingh.com which has me, Kumar Gaurav and Rajpal Yadav. Then there?s an American film to be shot in Kerala, very much like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I play the villain there. And finally there?s an English film with Nandana Dev Sen which should premiere in Cannes next year.?

When he is not playing to the gallery on the big screen, Javed is scouting talent on the small screen. As one of the judges of the STAR Plus dance show Kaboom, he is happy with the kind of performers that have come up on the show. ?Rather than imitating people, a lot of the aspirants have gone for original dance forms, which is very encouraging,? Javed says. ?They have also used classical dancing in their performances and one or two of them are really good.?

But there are no more role models, feels Javed. ?Michael Jackson was the last big one but he was not just a dancer, he was a performing artiste,? he explains. ?Locally in India, I tried something different in the 80s, then Prabhudeva started his brand in the 90s. Now, Hrithik (Roshan) is the best of the lot but he hasn?t really tried something unique that would make him a dancing idol. Something like a Shammi Kapoor did. So, we have to wait for the next dancing star.?