John Abraham: I can think and offer you different films

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All set to release his third production Rocky Handsome this March 25, the producer in him says, “I can think and I can offer you different films. I can act in a Houseful 2 or Race 2 but will I produce it? No. Bollywood is song and dance and that’s fantastic, but when are we going to deliver more than that? I went into production to steer clear of the herd mentality. Because of all the Rs 100-crore films I have done, people remember me for my productions, Madras Cafe and Vicky Donor and that is respect for different cinema.”

Today Abraham is constantly at work, finding ways of marrying commerce with content, translating a real-life incident and showing the youth a part of Indian history that shaped the country.

In Panchkula to talk about Rocky Handsome, Abraham says he has once again tried to redefine action in this film. The film has been adapted from the 2010 South Korean superhit film The Man From Nowhere. Rocky Handsome has been directed by Nishikant Kamat, also the villain in it. An emotionally charged story of a man out to save a seven-year-old girl, at its heart it has a beautiful relationship between Rocky and this little girl who calls him Handsome. But it’s not Bajrangi Bhaijaan.

“We did about 70 auditions to find Diya Chalwad to play the part of the girl for unlike Bajrangi, here Diya has a lot of monologues and she knew each and every by heart,” says Abraham. Another experiment was screening the film for men and women between the ages of 16 and 35 to gauge their reaction. “Surprisingly, it was the women who loved the action. It got me thinking how the generation has changed. They didn’t find it gruesome, but called it cool and sexy.”

The idea, says Abraham, was to make it palatable. “The action in the film is crazy, and for a 6ft tall person like me who weighs 94 kilos, it was challenging,” says Abraham who underwent an intensive 14-hour-a-day month-long training in Thailand in martial arts like hapkido, aikido and silat (Indo-Malay art with knives) and got action directors Rod (from India) and Kesha (Jaika Stunts, Thailand) on board for it. Post-Rocky Handsome, he is all set with Force 2, directed by Abhinay Deo.

“This one is Bourne Ultimatum meets Argo, a high-octane action drama. It will be intelligent cinema rather than beating each other’s guts out,” says the actor-producer, who is eying television and working on films for the digital format too.