Action not about blowing up cars: Hrithik
ACTION IS NOT JUST about blowing up cars but more about planning and strategising, says Hrithik Roshan, who feels that at one point the Hindi actioner became very boring because it “was spoon-fed and very easy”.
Hrithik, with movies like Dhoom 2, Bang Bang! and Mission Kashmir, has redefined the genre of action in Bollywood, which was predominant during the 1980s, 1990s and to some extent even in the 2000s.
Why are filmmakers apprehensive to explore the action genre now?
“It is very difficult to write an intelligent action entertainer. People think action is about blowing up cars. It’s not. Action needs intelligent writing. Action is in the process, in planning, it’s in the strategising of how the attitude of the hero comes into the piece of action, as well as the attitude of other characters,” Hrithik said.
“A Mission Impossible is a benchmark. It’s all in a very intelligently crafted screenplay and all the characters are very intelligent. They do not spoon-feed you. In our cinema, because we were so used to spoon-feeding at one point of time, our action films became very boring to watch. It was spoon-fed, very easy. It was like ‘yeh kya ho raha hai’ (What is happening?). Action was for the sake of action,” he said.
“Now it is changing, and with War I hope people start understanding that action needs to be devised according to the brain of the character. It has to be planned and there has to be a story in the action,” he said.
The budget matters too, while making a good actioner, says Hrithik.
“Of course, (there is) the budget. You need actors who are dedicated and mould themselves into that character. That is also important,” he said.
Apart from Hrithik, there are actors like Tiger Shroff and Ajay Devgn, who have done complete action films in the recent past.
Would it be right to say that Bollywood now has a few action stars?
“No. I think action can be done by a plethora of actors. There are so many. Apart from Tiger, there is Ranbir Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Varun Dhawan, Vicky Kaushal. There are so many actors who can do action now,” he said.
“This the genre I am most attracted to and I am aiming to do these films. But I don’t get such movies much, I don’t know why. When I got War I got very excited,” he said. Tiger Shroff is not worried that clashes with at the boxoffice. He said that nowadays there is a market for every kind of film, adding that he is a big fan of Amitabh Bachchan and Chiranjeevi who spearhead the cast of that multilingual film.
“I am a big fan of both of them. Nowadays, I feel that there is a market for every film so, I think every film should do good business, and I wish them all the best,” said Tiger.
“I am excited and nervous before the release of the film. Actually yesterday, I watched it for the first time. It was a family screening so we all watched the film together. I really had fun and I think it will be a treat for audience.” said Tiger.
Asked about his experience of working with Hrithik Roshan, Tiger said: “I was really scared to work with Hrithik on the first day of shoot because I was going to work with such a big star. I was really shaking with nervousness but it went off well because we didn’t have any face-to-face scene. After working with each other for a while, we developed a comfort factor. I feel blessed that I got the opportunity to work with such a huge actor as Hrithik, and that too so early in my career.”