John Abraham gets dramatic role in Aashayein

Acclaimed indie-director Nagesh Kukunoor has done the unthinkable: He cast Bollywood's ultimate eye-candy, John Abraham, in his much-delayed production Aashayein and here's the twist has resisted the temptation to titillate audiences with a shirtless scene.

Unusual, why? Well, Abraham's blockbusters such as Jism, Dostana and New York — are typically as much about the story as about Abraham's torso-baring, and his acting skills haven't always had top billing.

Fret not, however. Kukunoor is convinced his drama, about a man's existentialist fears when he realises that he has only 90 days to live, has enough steam to pull in the crowds.

tabloid! spoke with Kukunoor, 43, about the hurdles, the hunks and the highlights of Aashayein.

What took you so long to release Aashayein and did you have to re-shoot parts of the film which looked outdated?

Aashayein was scheduled to release around two years ago. But the producers from Percept and our distributor Big Pictures had a disagreement and the film got stuck in between all of this. A year or so later, they managed to resolve it.

In between all this, my film with Akshay Kumar, Tasveer 8X10, was slated to [be] released. So, naturally, the discussion to resolve the dispute was pushed back further.

Eventually, in December 2009 the differences were put aside.

I did not re-shoot the film. I nipped and tucked a bit, because I had the luxury of time. There was no need to re-shoot either, because the film is not time-bound. The theme is timeless, [and it does not feel] outdated.

John Abraham — often billed as Bollywood's top eye-candy — is an unlikely choice. What made you cast him?

Changing the perception about an actor and casting the same guy against the tide was an exciting proposition. And in John's case, he was known as this hunk, so the majority of his fans can never see him as more than this incredibly good-looking guy.

So the idea of casting John and spinning that perception on its head was exciting. And you won't see him doing heroic things or stripping off his shirt.

How did you convince him to join the project?

My idea of casting an actor — be it Juhi Chawla in Teen Deewarein or Ayesha Takia in Dor — is centred around the honesty that I see in that particular artist. If someone has that, I can work with other aspects to bring out the performance.

In John's case, there are no layers. With him: what you see is what you get. The first thing that struck me when I met him is that he's just a Bombay boy who is happy that he has made it big in Bollywood. He had that earnestness about him that was appealing.

So basically, I wanted John to be John in this film. But for this film, he had to really dig in deep to get the performance out.

What was the toughest part of making Aashayein?

Aashayein is a journey about a man who realises that he has 90 days to live and John was determined to live through that process. He lost nearly 12 kilos during the making of the film because we shot it in sequence.

I wanted John to take the journey along with his character, Rahul. And for most of the time, he was on an empty stomach because I wanted to capture the gaunt look. But this is one film where even John realised that he could prove many things to many people in one go.

They say a hungry man is an angry man, so did you have to treat him with kid gloves?

Even when I shoot with kids, I don't use kid gloves. Of course, actors are sometimes worse than kids, but John is very grounded. He [has] a Mallu [Malayali] father who does social work, so when you go to his place, he is a middle-class guy who is not prone to any star tantrums.

He is a director's delight.

You have often been charged with plagiarism [after the release of Dor, he was accused of copying Malayalam hit Perumazhakkalam; Teen Deewarain was a Bollywood remake of Shawshank Redemption; and a writer-director claimed Kukunoor had stolen his script for Iqbal]. Do you expect any such controversy to crop up over Aashayein?

All the material for Aashayein has been written by me. It's my script and my baby entirely.

And I always believe that people should first watch my film before judging whether it's spin-off or not. Very often people just level these accusations without watching my films, or such controversies just crop up when my films do well.

Don't miss it

Aashayein is currently showing in cinemas across the UAE.