Hot Fawad, Willing To Get Besharam!

Fawad Khan talks to Jitesh Pillai about films, fame and family.

- Jitesh Pillai

There’s no FOMO. Fear of missing out. Unlike celebrities obsessed with their mobile phones, he’s not plugged into it while chatting with me. Fawad Afzal Khan is a unique beast. Far from the madding world of social media and apps. He knows he’s the ‘it’ boy. He has the acting chops and all the ingredients that go into processing a pan Asian sweetheart. His rise to being Pakistani’s  hottest telestar has been chronicled in everything from Wikipedia to the foreign press. That serials like Zindagi Gulzar Hai and  Humsafar slalomed him into an A-list star has been tabloidised too. Music star, TV actor and now a major movie star, he’s getting  everyone’s knickers into a knot. The politics of the countries notwithstanding, Fawad Khan is a major player at the movies.  But but but! He’s happily married and he assures us that there’s no scope for messing around. He has this ‘unf***withable’ clause.  Pardon the French. No homilies, no goody-two-shoes act, I can sense someone trying to come to grips with the upside and the downside of stardom. For sure he knows he’s eye candy but he  won’t be any critic’s favourite whipping boy! Why? Because he can act. When he has a meltdown in the Pakistani TV show Humsafar,  it’s for real. You can see the eddies and the currents churning behind those aquiline features! FK is to the manner born. And we’re absolutely okay with that. We suspect the same seamlessness will be on display in Shakun Batra’s Kapoor & Sons! A role rejected by every top liner. We suspect all of them are going to kick themselves  for turning it down. On the cusp of his next, we pin down the star in his hotel room for quick parlay: 

Let’s talk about Kapoor & Sons. How’s the experience been like working with Karan Johar?