I had my own story to tell: Irrfan Khan

Drawing compliments for his performance in Qissa, actor Irrfan Khan talks about what drew him to the character of a delusional father and how he made it his own.

Initially when I was told about it, I felt I didn’t want this in my life right now. But after practising the rhythm of the words, I started enjoying speaking in Punjabi.

I enjoy playing roles that allow me to explore new emotional and verbal areas. In Qissa the difficult part was not the language, but getting into the headspace of my character.

I know that such obsession with the male child exists. But I wasn’t dealing with that. For me my character’s craving for a child is a metaphor for human desire.

My character is at war with nature. He wants to know why nature created his child as a woman.

Whatever the director Anup Singh had written was not a complete character portrait. I had to personalise the character, give the character something from my life. It was the only way I could make it my own.

I had my own story to tell. I had to add that story to the director’s story without getting intrusive.

She’s very focused. She once came to me during the shooting after pack up. She wanted to know what it meant when my character (the father) is shown swallowing up her character.

I told her sometimes over-explaining a situation kills its impact. Sometimes it is better not to intellectualise a given situation. Every thing in life and art cannot be explained by logic. Sometimes you just have to reflect and act.

We can try to intellectualise situations in a script. But I don’t work that way. I used to work like that. I used to question the director for meanings. When you do that, you start enacting the director’s interpretation of the character rather than what the character may actually represent.