Actor Irrfan Khan, who’s been prolific both in Bollywood and Hollywood, enjoys fame but doesn’t want to become a slave to it.
“I don’t want to depend on fame ... One day it should not be my need. I would want myself to be free from this need,” he said.
However, he isn’t quite as aloof as he would like. When asked about whether he was free from the urge to seek fame, he said: “No, I am not away from that need right now. I do need acknowledgement, because I have stories to share with the audience.
“You do need acknowledgement from the audience — what it [your story] is doing to them and whether it is reaching to them or not.”
In India, Khan has been lauded for his work on movies such as Paan Singh Tomar, Talvar, Maqbool, and 7 Khoon Maaf; internationally his portfolio includes The Namesake, Life of Pi, A Mighty Heart, Slumdog Millionaire, The Amazing Spider-Man and Inferno.
The actor says one day he’d like to just focus on a film’s story, not worry about how it’s being perceived. “Given a choice, I don’t want to care whether it is reaching [the audience] or not. If I want to do a story, I will do the story and just be happy by the process and forget about it,” he said, adding that with fame, come responsibilities. “It depends on you whether you want to feel responsible or not. It doesn’t come with a condition that you have to be responsible. Some people feel responsible and some people don’t,” he added.
