Emraan Hashmi reveals son Ayaan is a chess champ, playing in international competitions: ‘He’s way up there, I don’t stand a chance’

Emraan Hashmi’s son Ayaan is a chess champ.

He admits that when it comes to chess, he’s a novice and an amateur in comparison to his son and needs to learn the game properly. “Ayaan has promised to teach me, but I’ve not had the time to sit with him and learn. So, right now, he’s way up there and I don’t stand a chance,” Emraan laughs, giving full credit to his wife for taking their son to classes, pushing his talent and now travelling with him across the world.

Emraan Hashmi with his son Ayaan.

The actor himself has played different kinds of sport, including cricket and badminton. While in college, he got hooked on snooker and recalls playing at the club for almost six hours a day. “Then, when pool came to India in the late ’90s, it was a cakewalk for snooker players like me. We would go to pool parlours and win a lot of bets. It was fun, but as a ’80s kid, I was not as competitive as my son is today, I was just enjoying myself with friends,” he acknowledges.

One knows him as a undoubtedly talented, but always chilled out guy who as an actor seems far more edgy and driven. He admits as much, saying that while he still doesn’t make any New Year resolutions, as a professional there’s a desire to do better and get more disciplined every day. “Professionally, I still have the same curiosity that I started out with in 2003. I want to do roles that scare me because the fear that I may not be able to pull them off, pushes me to push the envelope,” he reasons.

He points out that in the first decade of the millennium, the Hindi film industry too wasn’t very experimental and he might have ended up playing similar kinds of characters. But with the advent of OTT, young filmmakers are coming up with exciting, character-based films. “Now, as an actor, there’s a hunger to accomplish because you’re doing something you’ve done in 15 other films before. Our Hindi film industry may not be going through the best of times, but there are a lot more filmmakers today with fresh ideas that make me want to explore different facets of myself as an actor,” he says.

Emraan will next be seen in Excel Entertainment’s Ground Zero which opens on April 25 and, according to its makers, is inspired by the Border Security Force’s best operation in 50 years. “I was blown away by the script. It’s a chapter from the history of our national security and encapsulates the adage, truth is stranger than fiction. My first reaction was, ‘Did this really happen and if so, how is it that not too many people know about it?’” he reminisces.

He is also foraying into South cinema with the Telugu gangster thriller, OG, co-starring Pawan Kalyan, and has also entered Adivi Shesh’s action-packed spy franchise with a sequel to the 2018 Telugu blockbuster Goodachari. Talking about what is an eagerly-anticipated cross-pollination of talent with superstars from other film industries, Emraan asserts that cinema is an amalgamation of ideas, of different cultures and creative minds. “The South film industry has its own audience, so do we. It’s good when Hindi film actors come into this world to create something new and unique. It results in a melting point of different worlds that makes for a fresh cinematic experience,” says the actor, who has never shied away from experimenting himself, be it with films like Murder, Jannat, Awarapan or Shanghai early in his career or Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai. Tigers and Tiger 3 later.

 

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Meanwhile, a controversy has broken out, almost out nowhere, with veteran Pakistani actor, Javed Sheikh, alleging that Emraan was coldly dismissive, even rude, when they first met at the Newlands Cricket Stadium in South Africa. Further, he has been quoted as saying in an interview, that through the filming of Jannat in which Sheikh plays an underworld don, Abu Ibrahim, who draws Emraan’s character, Arjun Dixit, into his dark world of match-fixing, they did not speak at all.

“It’s bizarre!” he exclaims, admitting that while he honestly doesn’t recall that first meeting because it happened so long ago, he does remember that Sheikh and he were always on cordial terms. “I was 20-something then, and he is not my age, so we were never friends. I didn’t hang out with him, but I don’t remember anything like what he is saying happening.”

He muses that maybe there was some miscommunication. “I don’t know what Javed sahab took back with him, but it is definitely something he has held on to for 16-17 years. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a giant comedy of errors that has snowballed into something I know nothing about,” he signs off with a still bewildered laugh.