John says Manya Surve will get his acting skills recognised

In a 10 year bollywood career John Abraham has defied a few trends. His transition from a super model to an A-list star has been pretty smooth. But it is his role as producer that has got people sitting up and taking notice. Last year John Abraham productions’ first film Vicky Donor was a hit of the year and also won three national awards.

His next release Shootout At Wadala has him playing the real life gangster Manya Surve – a daredevil whose death was the first recorded encounter in the history of Mumbai’s underworld. On A List show on the CNBC-TV18, John claimed that Manya Surve will finally get people to acknowledge John Abraham, the actor. Q: To start with Shootout At Wadala, the movie that is coming up for release. Honestly when you look at Manya Surve and if I was ever in charge of casting for the film, you wouldn’t be my first choice for it for obvious reasons.
A: Nor would I. Q: So were you surprised that this role came to you?
A: Well I was in fact instrumental in choosing the kind of film that we made right now with Sanjay Gupta. All credit to him for choosing this character but we were in unison when we chose this. However, I really wasn’t the first choice in my head for Manya Surve’s role. I honestly believed that it is a role that was very difficult to carry out but not impossible. I knew that as an actor I needed to have the guts to make that drastic change, to make sure that I succeed in a role like this and I worked hard for it. Q: But how tough was it to play someone who is a living person. We don't know much about him except the written word but what kind of creative license you take to interpret him or do you do some prep on how he looked, how he spoke like, what was he like or can you take creative license because it is not really someone that we have seen?
A: I don't know whether you read Dongri to Dubai, but if you read that Manya Surve is just a small chapter in that book and there are only two filed photographs of his if you see in the book. One is a passport size photograph and the other is a photograph post the encounter with nine bullets in his body. There was nothing much that we could do with that so we met people who knew him. Sanjay Gupta and myself, we actually met his cousins, we met people around who spoke to us about what he was like. We met the gentleman who killed him in an encounter- Isaque Bagwan who was very closely associated with Anil Kapoor throughout the film.
I remember Sanjay telling me, very interesting thing about his first meeting with Isaque Bagwan. When Sanjay asked him ‘tell me about yourself?’, in the two hours that  Bagwan spoke, I think for one hour fifty minutes he spoke about Manya Surve and that is what Sanjay told me was very impressive. We learnt a lot about what he was like, we knew that Manya Surve was a Mumbai Shri’, he was a bodybuilder, he was a tough guy. He was ruthless and he used to roam around alone, he had 12 gang members and none of his 12 confidants knew where he lived in four years that he ruled Mumbai from 1979-82. The only person that gave him away was the woman he was in love with and that is what makes the story very moving and exciting and one of the reasons why we wanted to do this. Q: Just like a Hindi film!
A: Just like a Hindi film and this is a commercial Hindi film but it is not a documentary. At the same time we have been inspired by true life incidents but we have fictionalized a lot of the film. Just to tell you why names have changed etc, my director, my studio did not want to get into any controversies. They have changed everyone’s name around because they fictionalized all the characters except mine. That is why Manya Surve stayed as Manya Surve in the entire film. So it was a very difficult and challenging film for me to do but it was fun too and I knew that if I carry this film off, the perception of people around me about what John Abraham is as an actor or what John Abraham is as a star would completely change, would take a 360 degree turn. Q: But how important is that assessment, where does that assessment come from? Is it from reviews, is it from critics?
A: My audience is my godfather, they love me. I wouldn’t have lasted here 10 years if I wasn’t doing something right. I love them too but I also feel that there is time for progression and graduation and I feel John Abraham was getting too comfortable in his boots in a Dhoom, in a Dostana, in a Desi Boys. He is always known as the body, the cool, urban actor. My performances which I think were amongst my best were No Smoking, Zindaa, Taxi 9211, Water, New York. These are performances that I am very proud of but a lot of them are always put behind because of the physicality that comes forward. So it is not as much the reviews, as much as it is myself that needed to make a change. I decided to make a change and I am happy that Shootout At Wadala fell in my lap.