To play a character of certain culture or sect is a big responsibility: Salman Khan

“When you play a person from any culture, any sect, you need to be very careful. You do not want to hurt anybody’s sentiments. You cannot make fun of them or demean them. You must always make them look like Gods and that is what I did even while playing a Haryanvi character in Sultan…. Ye humara Sardar hai pai..this is what we people are. I do not like it when inside Bigg Boss sometimes people go ‘main Punjab se hu, mai Haryana se hu, main Gujarat se hu…idhar kya batwara kar rahe ho, Hindustani ho, ye idhar mat karo ye. (I am from Punjab, I am from Haryana, I am from Gujarat….Do not do this here, you are Indians),” he said.

Antim: The Final Truth, draws its inspiration from the 2018 Marathi crime drama film Mulshi Pattern.

Salman, however, explains that while he liked the plot of Mulshi Pattern after he watched it, Antim is not really ‘a remake’.

“I liked the plot of Mulshi Pattern by Pravin Tarde. I had discussed it with him…but his film was through Rahuliya, my film is through the cop and his journey. Basically, two people suffered the same thing but one became a gangster while the other a cop,” he said.

Contrary to his previous films based on policemen, Antim features a cop with no romantic angle, nor the larger-than-life song sequences. Salman explains that the objective was to not dilute the character of Rajveer Singh.

“The character of Rajveer Singh is so strong that a heroine or a song would have diluted it. That is why we kept him as a solo simple man. We did shoot some scenes but it did not go well with the character. The romance, the song with my character could have garnered us money as well as appreciation…even my father suggested that my character is fine solo… There is a stark difference in the characters of policemen that I have played in the past like Chulbul Pandey. Mahesh had guaranteed me that this would be one of my best characters and I agree. There is no shouting, no screaming, just a calm, hard working policeman,” he said.

Although the trailer promises the audience an action-packed film with some catchy dialogues, Salman said that it is nothing but a fact. Commenting on one of his lines ‘Agar Sardar ke hategi toh sabki fategi,’ he said, “There is no punchline….it is a fact…Now Sholay’s dialogue kitne aadmi the.. He is asking a question.. all these are questions and answers..,”.

Reminiscing on his relationship with Pune, Salman said he often frequented the city to visit his maternal aunt. He also shared his memories from yesteryears when he cycled six to seven hours from Mumbai with his friends.

“When I was growing up, I used to cycle to Pune. A lot of the senior boys had their vehicles but I was still on a cycle. I used to do wheelie wheelie and jumps, attracting a lot of crowd, and they used to take me along. I understood that. It used to take six to seven hours back then on the Ghat roads. My friend Jaggi sat on the last seat and gave me his hand whenever I got tired. Back then, motor cross races happened in Pune and I used to come for that,” he said.

When asked about the pandemic affecting the film industry, especially cinema halls and single screens, Salman said he was optimistic that there would be more footfall soon as people do want to come back for films.