The Talented Mr. Farhan Akhtar

His repertoire of directing, acting, script writing and singing surprised us all. What Farhan Akhtar is set to do next is going to be no different.

- Nivedita Jayaram Pawar

Actor-director Farhan Akhtar is as striking as his films—clean cut look, sharp jaw, laser-bright eyes, hat…. Sadly though, the man bun and the beard are now gone. True to his ‘regular guy’ background, the 43-year old is engaging, honest and, despite the fame and adulation, still speaks in an endearing way.

By his own admission, Farhan was a late starter and was aimless to the point that it worried his mother, Honey Irani. After being taken off the rolls for low attendance in college, Farhan took to watching movies with a vengeance. “I was always fascinated with the world of cinema because of the environment Zoya and I grew up in. There was always talk of films, performances, music and writing. It was magical and a world I always wanted to be a part of.” The humungous VHS collection at home gave Farhan a never ending supply of Hindi, English, American, Japanese and Iranian films. But, it was the Amitabh Bachchan films of the 1970s and the early Scorsese films that made him yearn to be on the silver screen.

From writing ad films and scripts for television shows, Farhan graduated to being an assistant director for films like Lamhe and Himalay Putra. He finally helmed his first feature film Dil Chahta Hai (DCH) in 2001, and changed Bollywood forever. It showed the audience that Hindi films didn’t have to be escapist to win appreciation. DCH was the torchbearer of bromance in Bollywood. A theme not explored before, at least not as realistically. It paved the way for new-age, urban movies, which were high on realism and low on typical Bollywood masala.