With his coiffure and manners firmly in check, Dulquer Salmaan cut a dapper appearance while posing for shutterbugs as they fawned over the Kerala actor who was in Dubai to promote his film, Karwaan.
Sharing an easy camaraderie with his co-star Mithila Palkar, even as he dodged questions about his illustrious father, South Indian superstar Mammootty, Salmaan’s affable attitude towards the media circus unfolding was undeniable.
Yet, the actor immediately sobered up when the name Irrfan Khan was mentioned. His Karwaan co-star, who is currently battling a life-threatening neuroendocrine tumour, has been unable to partake in the film’s promotional activities as he undergoes treatment for his condition.
“It is tricky to promote a film under such circumstances because these have to be energetic, enthusiastic exchanges,” said Salmaan. “Ronnie [Screwvala, film producer] decided to delay the film’s release initially, suggesting we wait for the right time and be sensitive to his [Khan’s] condition. Even now, Ronnie doesn’t want to have a gala premiere. But, at the same time, you also can’t abandon the film.”
Director Akarsh Khurana was quick to point out that, despite his health concerns, Khan was still very much a part of the film’s journey.
“Irrfan, being who he is, has remained accessible throughout the film,” said Khurana. “In fact, Irrfan saw the final cut of Karwaan with his family and he likes the film. His approval and his go ahead was very important to us and we got that.”
The team still professes a sense of disbelief ever since they heard of Khan’s deteriorating health.
“Irrfan had seen the first cut of the film after the shoot and had given me his feedback. But soon after that he got diagnosed. We were really stumped,” recalled Khurana. “We had all heard the rumours that something was amiss, but I finally got a confirmation, a call in the middle of the night. I remember calling Dulquer to inform him and there was stunned silence at his end.”
The trio admitted the first few days were spent coming to terms with their churning emotions and trying to decipher whether etiquette permitted them to question Khan about his ill health. “He has remained brave and positive throughout the ordeal and even remained sporadically in touch with me. We miss Irrfan that it almost feels like we are not promoting this film in its true form because he is not around,” said Khurana.
Making his ‘debut’
Despite 23 films and a six-year career graph behind him, Salmaan is still making his ‘debut’ in the trailer credit of Karwaan. The move has left many puzzled, while his ardent fan base has gone further to articulate their displeasure with the film’s makers over social media.
The actor himself appears quite amused with the tag, although his next words reiterated that Karwaan is a first step of sorts for him considering its his first Hindi language film.
“I loved the idea of the film right from the beginning,” recalled Salmaan. “What you see in the trailers is exactly how it first played in my head when I heard the script. I loved that Irrfan sir was already on board and that Ronnie Screwvala was backing the film.
The director thinks the ‘debut’ was necessary to introduce Salmaan to a wider fan base who may not be aware of the actor’s large body of work.
“A lot of people have brought up why are we introducing him when he’s an established superstar. Yes, he’s done Tamil and Telugu films, but I guess there’s a large section of the Hindi film audience that is not fully aware of his work,” Khurana said.
The road movie takes two friends from Bengaluru to Kochi, when Salmaan’s character receives the wrong dead body after his father dies. En route, they pick up a bratty teenager, played by Mithila Palkar, and embark on what the makers call, a journey of a lifetime.
Salmaan admits it was gut instinct that led him to sign on for the project. “The intention of the makers matters to me. So far in my career I have followed that instinct and it has always worked for me,” he said.
More than a YouTube find
Once the film’s two leads were secured, the director said that’s when he finally approached Palkar to audition for the role of Tanya. Khurana revealed he’s known Palkar from his theatre days dating a decade back. Although, since her time of performing on stage, the young actress has come a long way in her career, becoming a YouTube sensation of sorts when her Marathi version of Anna Kendrick’s Cup song from Pitch Perfect went viral.
Over the past several months, her stint on the web series Little Things caught the attention of streaming giant Netflix, which snapped up the second season of her show, while the 24-year-old also earned a spot on the Forbes India list of 30 under 30 to watch out for.
Even Salmaan admits he Googled Palkar before heading for the Karwaan shoot. “I saw Little Things, I saw her infamous Cup song. And each time it made me even more excited because I thought she fit Tanya’s role very well in the film after I read the script. It was a very crucial casting and when Mithila first walked into the room and I thought, yes, this is her.”
“I obviously looked him up too,” said a cheerful Palkar. “And I knew that he was a big deal. From the time OK Jaanu came out [2017 Bollywood film], I knew there was an OK Kanmani [2017 hit Tamil film starring Salmaan] as well that inspired the former. In fact, I started watching Dulquer’s film but my internet gave up on me. So I probably watched 15 minutes of the film before meeting him.”
She went on: “I only realised the magnitude of his persona when we started shooting down south. I think that helped me because I was already intimidated by Irrfan sir — not in a negative way but out of respect for him. So it helped to be Dulquer’s friend first and then his fan.”
Lessons from his father
Naturally, no conversation with Salmaan can avoid a mention of his famous father, Kerala superstar Mammootty. Although, rather than on camera, the younger actor prefers to respond to the questions in a more casual setting, as he prepped for his photoshoot.
“There was a weight on my shoulders when I first started doing films, because I was known as Mammootty’s son and Dulquer Salmaan later. Not that this is a bad thing, but it also comes with a lot of expectations that you, as an inexperienced actor, are not sure if you can ever match or fulfil,” he admitted. “But my father has always been supportive of my choices and his one important advice to me has always been, if you pick a film, give it your best and then trust the makers and your fans to carry it home.”
The actor, who grew up on the sets of film shoots, recalls some of his best childhood memories taking road trips from Tamil Nadu to Kerala.
“Those Chennai-Kochi road journeys with my parents when we were younger are some of my best memories. We used to live in Chennai and travel to Kochi for my father’s work who used to work in Malayalam cinema. We used to have home cooked food for breakfast, lunch was usually somewhere round the border of Tamil Nadu and Kerala and it would be some kind of biryani and ridiculously cold in the winters. And this was pre-Walkman and pre-iPod days, so all we would listen to were old classics on the radio.
“Of course, now, on the Karwaan road trip we had Mithila to make up for it, who sings at every chance she gets. We call her the jukebox. She can pick from a song from any year and you never know what she is going to sing next.”
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Quick takes with team Karwaan
The plot of the the film:
“The idea of Karwaan came from Bejoy Nambiar [Indian filmmaker-screenwriter]. I was acting in his film David at the time and he had the idea what if there was a situation that somebody’s relative had passed away and the body that came to him was the wrong one,” said director Akarsh Khurana, adding: “There was no incident as such that sparked the idea. Although, a few weeks ago there was an actual article in the paper that someone got the wrong body. And then I was asked whether it was a publicity stunt.”
Speaking in Hindi:
Dulquer Salmaan, who makes his Hindi film debut with Karwaan, says he attended a couple of readings with co-star Mithila Palkar to get his diction right. “My schooling in Chennai helped as well. We had a huge mix of kids that came from all over the country and we picked up quite a lot while growing up.
“Of course, there are certain thing such as accents others hear that you don’t. Like when I started started speaking in Tamil. I gave my Irrfan [Khan] a heads up when we first started shooting and he was just amused by my language skills. In fact, I told him it was my first Hindi film and I was a little worried about speaking right. So he was always on hand to help.”
Working with Irrfan Khan
“It took a while to come to terms with the fact that I was acting with him and not his audience this time,” revealed Mithila Palkar.
Salmaan agreed, adding: “For me, Irrfan sir is a humongous star — he’s one of the senior stars that I really look up to. So, I put in the extra effort to be prepared because you can start fumbling your lines if you are a bit star-struck. If you get into that conscious bout, you can take multiple takes before you snap out of it.”
A road journey to remember:
“I used to travel a lot with my theatre group earlier,” recalls Khurana. “One night, while we were travelling through Patna, we realised we were in dacoit territory. And naturally, we got lost. We finally met someone who, at first we thought was going to loot and kill us, but he turned out to be very helpful in the end.”
Salmaan adds: “I would love to take my wife [Amal Sufiya] on a road journey with me, if she ever agrees. But most of the time, she just falls asleep.”
