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Imran Khan, actor Aamir Khan’s nephew, was last seen in the film Katti Batti (2015) with Kangana Ranaut. He was out of action for several years but has recently returned to public life following an outpouring of love from his fans. In a new interview, he spoke about how he has evolved over the years, and how this will affect his future career choices. Imran said that he has become very “sensitised and sensitive” given his experiences with mental health in the last few years. He said that he has been consciously “wanting to get back to work” and is searching for “something interesting” to do.
Talking to Zoom, Imran said said that while he is ready to make a comeback, he is conscious of what kind of films he wants to be associated with. He said, “I am now consciously wanting to get to work, wanting to find something interesting to work on”. He said that he is now coming to it with a “slightly different creative and emotional perspective” and doesn’t want to get stuck into the rut of box office numbers. He said, “It’s easy to live in this Bollywood bubble where you start to buy into that narrative and to start to that world view that box office is king and how is it received and all of that. What that does ultimately it devalues what I genuinely cherish.”
When asked if he has decided what kind of films he’d want to do, Imran said that he as a result of his personal and emotional journey in the past few years, has found himself in a “very sensitive and delicate space”. “I am unable to watch things that have a hardness or bleakness,” he said. Giving an example of how he was not able to watch TV series Succession as it was too stressful.
He said that he is consciously seeking out “gentler” films, as a viewers and as an actor. “I am currently very sensitive and sensitised to that sort of to bleakness, to darkness, to violence and gore, it overwhelms me, ” he added.
When the interviewer asked him if he’s watched his contemporary Ranbir Kapoor’s Animal, which became controversial for its depiction of toxic masculinity, Imran said that he can’t “critique” the film as he has not watched it. “It looks like it’s got a fair bit of action,” he remarked.
In an earlier interview with Film Companion Imran had said, “I don’t want to do a film where somebody solves a problem with a gun,” which many interpreted as a dig at films like Animal. When he was asked if he was taking dig at Animal, Imran clarified that he actually wasn’t talking about the Sandeep Reddy Vanga directorial, but was discussing a series that Abbas Tyrewala had offered him.
“I was referring to a role I was offered. People like to take things and make it about another film. I personally would never critique another person’s film in public, I consider it disrespectful,” he said. Opening up about why he rejected the series offered by Tyrewala, which was set in the world of espionage, he said that the show “ultimately fell by the wayside but I was addressing my part in that, playing a character who is an action guy, a spy, a lot of action and violence. I was not wanting to play that kind of a part for myself.”
Imran and Ranbir started out at the same time, and were often pitted against each other. But while Ranbir rose up the ranks of Bollywood, Imran decided to prioritise his well-being over his career.
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