Irrfan Khan talks about playing Sahir Ludhianvi and Jurassic World

Irrfan, who recently returned to India after shooting for Jurassic World, is more excited about at least one of his upcoming Bollywood projects than his Hollywood venture. He’s signed on to play Sahir Ludhianvi in a film about the poet and lyricist’s life. “I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to this," he said. “I don’t have to prepare to play Sahir. I’ve grown up with his poetry. His thoughts are so much a part of our consciousness that we don’t need to explore them any further to know him. His lines have left a deep impact on all of us who grew up in post-Independent India.” ( Read about Sahir Ludhianvi's love story with Amrita Pritam ) The other project that Khan is involved in is Shoojit Sircar’s Piku, which has been in the works for a while now. Shooting for the film just kicked off and before it had started, Khan was looking forward to working with Amitabh Bachchan and Deepika Padukone. Piku and the Ludhianvi biopic are the only Indian films that Khan is working on at the moment. [caption id=“attachment_1691047” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Courtesy: ibn live[/caption] Over the last few years, Khan has become India’s best-known export to Hollywood, having worked in blockbuster films like The Amazing Spider-Man. In Jurassic World, he plays the owner of a dinosaur-themed park. Jurassic World is a sci-fi terror adventure, according to the film’s director Colin Trevorrow, and is set 22 years after the events of Jurassic Park. If Khan is to be believed, the shooting was anything but a terror for him. “It was so much fun,” said Khan. “Though it is a huge epic project, everyone on the crew was so relaxed. There was no attempt to appear self-important. Throughout the shooting there was a sense of playfulness in the atmosphere. I felt completely at home and we wrapped up the film in record time.” Talking about his director, Khan said of Trevorrow, “Just observing him at work I felt so much richer.” So far, Khan’s roles in Hollywood films have often been insubstantial. While he had a significant presence in The Namesake and The Life of Pi, in The Amazing Spider-Man, his character literally disappeared without explanation in the last act of the film. When asked about the length of his role in Jurassic World, Khan was diplomatic. “I am very happy with what we’ve shot,” he said. “How the role finally shapes up depends on so many things. I appeared for much less screen-time than I had shot for in Slumdog Millionaire and Spiderman. But that was for the betterment of the final product. No one in the West is waiting to upstage me or sabotage my career.” So is Khan looking to don the director’s mantle himself? “Not yet,” said Khan. “Maybe never.” However, the actor is looking at the role of being a producer more seriously. “After the kind of response I got for The Lunchbox, I’ve started enjoying the role of the producer,” he said. The Lunchbox, which began as a little film set in Mumbai and has ended up to be one of the most successful and well-known Indian films worldwide, has been a learning curve for Khan. “I enjoyed the creative aspect of film production, though I still can’t handle money," he said. “I’ll definitely be producing more film in future.” He’s already got a project lined up. “I will now produce a film to be directed by Mira Nair’s nephew, Ishaan. He came up with a very interesting script and I immediately said yes.”