Why we will get a chance to see a new side of Salman Khan in Tubelight
The last time Kabir Khan and Salman Khan got together, the result was the actor’s most successful film to date — Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015). Two years later, unsurprisingly, expectations are high from Tubelight, the duo’s third collaboration since Ek Tha Tiger (2012).
An adaptation of the little-seen Hollywood drama, Little Boy, the film sees Khan as Laxman, a village simpleton whose life is affected when his brother (Sohail Khan) is sent off to fight the India-China war in 1962.
For many Salman "Bhai" Khan is Bollywood’s very own last action hero and the epitome of machismo, but the trailer and songs of Tubelight so far suggest that viewers will get to see another side of the 51-year-old actor. Kabir Khan made Salman showcase the “vulnerability, childishness and naiveté” of a character whose conduct has earned him the nickname Tubelight. The attempt, says Kabir Khan, was not to reinvent Salman but to react to the story.
Said Kabir Khan, “I told Salman, ‘If you don’t commit to this character fully, I will not be able to save the film. If the character doesn’t connect, the film won’t. It is totally on your shoulders.”
Often accused of taking it too easy on screen, Bhai seems to have understood what’s at stake and the significance of the character. There were discussions, preparation work and research for character references. Amidst it all “there was a parallel process that was going in Salman’s mind that I wasn’t even aware of”, said Kabir Khan.
“I was taken aback by his performance,” said the filmmaker. “I’ve never seen Salman approach a character the way he has in Tubelight.”
The writer-director didn’t make things easy for Salman Khan either. He made him shoot the climax on his first day on set. “I threw him in the deep end and he was game for it,” said Khan.
The one long take Salman gave, says Kabir Khan, was proof that the actor was “really thinking about it. He was not winging it”.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)