John has action hero ambitions from ‘Force’

With fast-paced action entertainers doing well,are you confident about Force?
Every film brings a different dimension to any actor and I am known for being in that weird space where I do movies like ‘Kabul Express’,’Water’,’No Smoking’ and so on. ‘Force’ is a huge experiment for me as an action hero. After ‘Dhoom’,I haven’t done any action film. So this one needs to click to establish me as action hero. The only other true blue action hero we have is Akshay Kumar. There is no one from the younger lot who can be termed as an action hero and I am keen to establish myself in that space.

Post ‘Dhoom’,why didn’t you take up more action films?
After ‘Dhoom’,a lot of people told me that I should do more action films,but I guess a good script never came my way. One day,Vipul Shah called me up and asked me to watch the Tamil film ‘Khakha Khakha’ because he wanted to remake the film with me. I was blown over by it.

Your muscles and biceps in ‘Force’ have been making headlines for a while now. But you have always had a fit body,so why the buzz around it this time?
In Force,director Nishikant Kamat wanted the action to be more nuanced and enhanced as compared to the original. He wanted me to look real and intense. I have always worked out,but this time,I worked a lot harder to look tougher.

Did the failure of ‘Jhootha Hi Sahi’ and ‘Aashayein’ bog you down?
Not really. One can look at a film in retrospect and find many reasons for the film not faring well. But there is a lot of pressure on me when one film fails because I mostly have just one release every year.