The moment you wore a moustache in Dabanng in 2010, a whole lot of people I noticed started sporting them as well. You were apprehensive first. Is there any particular reason you finally gave in?
I shaved it off, no particular reason. It’s just that that the entire belt of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar has men who want to look older. That’s because those are very dabanng (fearless) states. ‘Mardangi ki nishani hoti hai wahan par’(it’s a sign of being macho there). Or they want to look more mature. It depends on the kind of face you have. And men-folk in those states have features that can carry off the moustache pretty well. They look tougher, stronger, braver, which for whatever reasons they might have, I think it is to look tougher and more macho.
Generally otherwise, everyone wants to be chikna, as it were, clean shaven.
In Tere Naam, for instance, when you had long hair, pretty much everyone in certain pockets of India also started wearing long hair.
I was born and brought up in Bombay. Until I was 16, for a period of two to three years, every two or three months, we used to go to Indore. So I would, in a year, spend a good four months in Indore on the fields. All the style that I’ve imbibed in roles come a lot from the way I’ve seen my cousins behave.
Even this Chulbul Pandey character from Dabangg has come from a lot of people I’ve noticed at shoots and stuff. It’s an accumulation of all things I’ve heard people speak and behave like. So what you see in the movie is not me. It is actually the common man who behaves in a particular manner.
I mean stuff like, when you ask someone, “Kaise Ho? (How are you?)”, he would reply “Tumko kya pharak padta hai (How does it matter to you!).” They have a very twisted way of saying things. Or even if you ask, “Bimaar ho? (Are you unwell?),” they’ll say, “Theek nahin hai to kya kar lo uske baray mein. Madad karoge? (I’m not well, so what’re you going to do about it? Will you help?).” You know, they are on a weird tangent altogether. So that is what these characters of mine have been based on.
Even in Tere Naam, the whole character is based on a kind of a guy to whom you’d react to in school saying, “Hero banta hai. Iske baal kaato (He’s trying to be a hero, let’s cut his hair!).” What I’m trying to say is that in small town India, that hero-giri means having long hair. In fact I remember when I used to have long hair in Maine Pyar Kiya and after that I cut my hair, my father had got upset with me. He said, “Hero ki ek nishani hoti hai. Lambe baal hote hai uske (Long hair is a marker for heroes. They all have long hair).” But things keep changing.
There is an incredible amount influence that you have had on especially small town India in terms of style. They look at you in a film and immediately want to copy you. Would you agree?
They somewhere see themselves in me. There are people who want to be stars. There was a time when people used to wonder where Dilip Saab (Dilip Kumar) used to stay, what did he eat, how did he talk…. There was this curiosity about stars then. Today there is no curiosity.
I’m here right now. I’m there on every TV channel. On screen it’s different, because about a hundred people are there turning you into that star. But now there is nothing like that. I’m just that – a common man. It’s just that some people have this aspiration to be that star sort of guy. My problem is that I’ve never felt that and I would never want to be that, because that’s not what I want to be remembered by.
I don’t want Salman Khan to be remembered as a star, actor. That is not my priority in life. I believe that because you want to be like that, so the way I speak or the way I conduct myself – you guys have a lot of stuff coming out of me.
Everyone has pretty much done everything there is to be done in India or abroad, or maybe they’ve done a lot more. I am no different. So I get screwed when they turn around and say, “Arre isme kya hai! Humne bhi kiya hai yeh (What’s the big deal? Even I’ve don’t that!).” The thing is how I handle it afterwards. That is the one thing that doesn’t make me different from anyone else, because I know I’ve not done anything different from anybody to be slammed for, or written about.
I was talking about your influence as a style icon…
But that’s what it is basically. The off-screen image helps the on-screen image develop.
In It Happened One Night, Clark Gable appeared on-screen with his shirt off for the first time, and the entire undershirt business in America went down. Since you took your shirt off, do you think you may have lowered the baniyan sales in India?
That was accidental. It’s like how you are at home. You are going to be bare-chested. If you are alone at home, you’re gonna be lot more than that, but you can’t show it on-screen – especially women. During Maine Pyar Kiya I was working out and you can’t work out with a shirt on. You generally put on a pair of shorts. This applies to everyone – to the people working on the streets, carpenters, labourers – everybody is bare-chested. And because they work that much, they are much more ripped than I would ever be.
Was there a point in your life when you just turned into a fitness freak?
I’ll tell you, most of the guys who do not take their shirt off is because they feel shy. Pate dikh raha, sides dikh rahein hai, handles hain (stomach, sides and love handles are exposed). I don’t have that problem. At least not yet. And because of me lots of people don’t have that problem either (laughs). No, it’s true! (shrugs). I’ve been a fitness freak for long now. Everybody comes back to the handles and then goes, “Aah” (makes a disgusted face).
Was it also a conscious career decision for you?
Some (stars) have now have started showing off their butt, which is a little too much for me. I’m sure you guys would love to see it, but guys like us don’t like to see all that. So those people are catering to certain one and half section of the awaam (masses). Which is quite cool yaar! It’s lovely.
My (bare-chested) look came out in ‘Oh Oh Jaane Jaana’ (song) from Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya. I was shooting in Madh Island and I had just started working out, so the clothes that I had got for the shoot wouldn’t fit me. In a month’s time, I had put on four and half kilos of muscle. I had tried on the shirt and jacket that I was to wear with torn jeans a month before the shoot and it had fit me perfectly. But when we were shooting, it just wouldn’t fit.
Now from Madh Island, to go back to Bandra or Juhu to pick up new clothes would take a whole day. So I told Sohail (Khan), let it go, brother. Let’s do it without the shirt. Sohail said, “You’re mad or what?” I said, let’s try it. We saw it on the video edit. It looked good, so I said, “Chalo, kya pharak padta hai. (How does it matter!).” Well, that’s how the bare chested thing came about. And then every film that I did, they’d go, “Shirt nikalo, shirt nikalo, shirt nikalo (take off your shirt).” The films in which I wouldn’t, they’d say with disappointment, “Nahin nikala, nahin nikala, nahin nikala (didn’t take off his shirt).” So pretty much I had my ass kicked from both sides.
Do distributors or producers expect you to do this now in every film?
No, no, no. It depends on what scene I’m doing and if it actually demands it, or if I’m looking amazingly fit. Apne mood pe depend karta hai (It depends on my mood). The major principle behind this is that if you want to be healthy, you have to hit the gym and take care of yourself. You want to patao (woo) hot chicks, you have to be like that. Because that is the first attraction.
After that you get to know what a jerk he is or whatever, that’s a different stage altogether, which I’ve been through a lot. Jo aadmi gym jayega (the guy who’ll hit the gym), will work out, take steam, shower, will come out ‘ekdum chaka chak’ – he has to spend at least three to four hours in the gym.
It’s better than standing at Bandstand or Carter Road, driving cars really fast with that ‘dhin-chak’ music. By the time you come out of the gym, there is nobody there on the street. It’s also better that you stay away from cigarettes and alcohol. Even though these things are bad, no matter how much you tell people not to, they will still take them. It’s still all okay as long as you’re working out. Sabke apne apne funde hai life ke andar! (Everybody has their own take on life).
Coming back to films, something a lot of movie fans might agree with, Andaaz Apna Apna was possibly your best movie. Everybody’s seen it countless number of times. How many times have you seen it?
I’ve not even seen it once. Once actually, when I was dubbing for it, and I saw a little bit of it when it was coming on TV, about five or six years ago. That was really funny because Katrina (Kaif) was watching the film and she was watching it just like that. Everyone around was laughing and she had just started learning Hindi, I remember, she just wouldn’t laugh saying she didn’t understand it. And then one day she was watching something and she called me, asked me check to check out this guy. There’s this new kid who wants to be you. Just look at him. Poor thing he’ll never make it. She was watching Maine Pyar Kiya then!
Would you do an Andaz Apna Apna sequel?
Andaz Apna Apna sequel I will definitely do, if I find the right script. I was on a radio show in Delhi once where they had an Andaz Apna Apna quiz with four levels. I knew nothing. I couldn’t even go beyond the first level. I have done the movie. Strange yaar!
Did it surprise you that the film wasn’t a huge commercial success, despite starring you and Aamir?
People at that time didn’t even know that the movie had released. There was no publicity. It was a very different kind of film. It is generally always the younger generation who laps onto all these types of things. Every minute a child opens his eyes and gets to know of Salman Khan, he screams when he understands Salman Khan. So every minute you have a fan.
Finally, tell us something about your growing up, you were raised in the posh suburb of Bandra?
Yes. Cool, na? There’s a whole lot of new people who’ve come into Bandra. The old guys have all disappeared. Somebody is in Vancouver, some in Toronto, some in New Zealand. All the guys we used to hang out with are not there anymore, apart from Baba (Siddiqui, the local MLA).
Bandra used to be full of cottages. All these buildings have come up now. There’s a green patch right opposite Shah Rukh’s house, where we used to sit as kids. Now we can’t do that any more. That was not his house then. It was Dubash Bungalow.
All our childhood got spent between Sea Rock and that place – lots of sport, cycling through the lanes, robbing mangoes, loving apples, tamarind…. Even boating during the floods. St Paul’s Road used to be flooded and the fishermen used to get their boats out and we used to do boating and all that. If we start boating now, they’ll say kitna heartless admi hai (what a heartless man), it’s flooding and they are messing around.