Ishaan Khatter On Films, Family And More...

The coming of age of Ishaan Khatter, Bollywood’s “little romantic”.

Transcript

00:00I've tailed him around on V-sets from when I was 8 years old.

00:25I've learnt a whole bunch of things on each film that I've done.

00:29Every day is a learning process, especially when you're in a creative job.

00:33My foundation was set by Mujib-E-Sir.

00:36He taught me the value of perseverance, finding comfort in discomfort,

00:44giving one's all to their craft and their job, the value of faith.

00:51And then on to Thadak, I learnt to, in a way, free myself of certain inhibitions that I had as a performer.

01:06Suitable Boy, you know, it was a completely different format for me.

01:10I've never done a series before.

01:12Suitable Boy also being that there were so many characters, say about 100-114 important characters,

01:20I had to really assume responsibility for my own part and sort of direct myself to a certain degree

01:28so that I would be prepared when I was in front of the camera

01:31and not have to load my director, Meera B, any more than she needed.

01:49Firstly, you learn how to drive the taxi.

01:52You know, the Fiat Padmini, the old school Kali Peelis, that's something that I insisted on.

01:59I asked them, requested them many a times that if I could get the picture vehicle

02:04that we would be shooting in, I could brush my hand on it, I would get a lot of my body language.

02:10You know, I would be able to spend time in it, make it my own.

02:14And of course, be able to drive it because I really wanted to have the experience of doing all the driving myself.

02:19So, but, you know, as luck would have it, I didn't actually get the Kali Peeli till the day of shoot.

02:33My mom is somebody that to this day, since I was young, she's the voice in my head.

02:40You know, we have discussions about cultural arts and about dancing, music, acting, cinema all the time.

02:49And she's a soundboard for me.

02:52So, she's definitely been somebody that I have drawn a lot of inspiration from.

02:57You know, and my father, my father has an incredible dubbing voice.

03:04A lot of voice work I have learnt by directly watching him.

03:08My brother, of course, has been an inspiration.

03:13I have tailed him around on movie sets from when I was 8 years old and he was kind enough to let me.

03:20He saw that I was a little romantic at heart and I was in love with the movies from a very young age.

03:28So, he let me tail him around on set and I used to take the whole experience in and watch everyone working.