Cancer modifies Bollywood star’s outlook
LOS ANGELES — Actor Irrfan Khan has bounced with ease between Bollywood star and Hollywood chameleon.
He has worked with Mira Nair, Wes Anderson, Ang Lee and many others, stealing scenes in both Oscar winners (such as “Slumdog Millionaire”) and blockbusters (“Jurassic World”).
But all that has been put on hold as he undergoes treatment in London for a neuroendocrine tumor, a rare form of cancer.
Although Khan’s life now differs substantially from that of only a few months ago, films that he worked on as recently last year are still being released, including “Puzzle,” a poignant character drama in theaters on Aug. 24.
The indie film from Oscarnominated producer Marc Turtletaub (“Little Miss Sunshine”) centers on a stifled suburban housewife (Kelly Macdonald), who forms a bond with a more cosmopolitan man (Khan) over a shared fondness for puzzles.
The 51-year-old actor talked recently about the film and his illness.
Q: “Puzzle” is quite lovely but also a small character drama — a bit of a departure from the bigger Hollywood films for which you’ve become known.
A: I was looking for something for a long time in American cinema, Hollywood cinema. I have been reaching for this, for a personal experience where I could invest myself . . . and get into something which is unknown.
This character had complexity and a strange unpredictability where he himself doesn’t know where things are moving and is in a limbo state. There are so many interesting angles to this person.
Q: How are you doing in general?
A: I’ve seen life from a completely different angle. You sit down, and you see the other side and that’s fascinating. I’m engaged on a journey.
Q: There’s been a lot of speculation in the media about your condition, and you’ve made pleas on social media not to trust the reports. But what do you want people to know about what you’re going through? Actor Irrfan Khan, who is battling a neuroendocrine tumor Khan, left, with “Slumdog Millionaire” co-stars Dev Patel, Freida Pinto and Anil Kapoor
A: There are challenges which life throws at you. But I have started believing in the way this condition has tested me — really, really tested me in all aspects: physical, emotional and spiritual. It has put me in a rapture state.
Initially, I was shaken. I didn’t know. I was very, very vulnerable. But, slowly, there is another way to look at things that is much more powerful and much more productive and much more healthy, and I just want people to believe that nature is much more trustworthy and one must trust that.
The problem with me
initially was everyone was speculating whether I would be out of this disease or not. Because it’s not in my hand. That’s nature that will do whatever it has to do.
What is in my hand, I could take care of that. And it offers so much that you feel thankful. The way it is opening your windows to look at life. I would have never reached that state even if I had done meditation for 30 years, I wouldn’t have reached it.
But this sudden jolt has put me into a platform where I could look at things in a completely different manner. And for that, I am
really thankful. It sounds strange, but they should trust nature rather than feel sad, and trust that whatever the outcome, it will be for good and it will be for the best.
Q: What is your day-today life like now? Are you reading scripts or planning to work at all?
A: No, I’m completely out of reading scripts. This has become a surreal experience. My days are unpredictable. I used to think my life would be like that, but I could never practice unpredictability and spontaneity. That has happened now. I don’t plan. I go for breakfast and then I don’t have a plan. I take things as they come.
Q: You’re in London going through treatments. Is there anything you can share about that?
A: I have had the fourth cycle of chemo. I have to have six cycles, and then we need to have a scan. After the third cycle, the scan was positive. But we need to see after the sixth scan. And then we’ll see where it takes me. There’s no guarantee of life with anybody. My mind could always tell me to hang a kind of chip on your neck and say, “I have this disease, and I could die in a few months or a year or two.” Or I could just avoid this conversation completely and live my life the way it offers me. And it offers so much. I admit I was walking around with blinders. I couldn’t see what it offered me.
Q: So there is some sort of clarity with this experience?
A: Exactly, and clarity came like lightning. You stop your contemplation, you stop your planning, you stop the noise. You see the other aspect of it. It gives you so much. Life offers you so much. That’s why I feel like I have no other words but thanks. There are no other words; there’s no other demand; there’s no other prayer.