Barbarian faqir or one-eyed prize-fighter? Fawad Khan’s idea of Maula Jatt

The long wait to see Fawad Khan on the big screens, especially in Pakistani cinemas, was worth the wait. The handsome hunk, known for his die-hard romantic avatar, aptly fit the gandasa holding Maula Jatt in Bilal Lashari’s reboot of the 1979 cult classic. However, what you see on screen wasn’t the first look of Maula that the makers settled for and some of Fawad’s suggestions also made the cut.

From a barbarian fakir to a one-eyed prize fighter to a tassel of red hair and a long scar on the face, the outlook of Maula was polished over several stages. Fawad spoke to Rolling Stone India about his ravenous eating habits, failed kidneys, and needing a separate pillow for his hair.

“We have this set interpretation of heroes being muscular and sculpted like Greek gods. Maula is just a prizefighter, a Punjabi pahalwan. He’s brute force, a rock. He’s not a sculpture,” said Fawad about his character. “When we were embellishing and crafting the look of Maula Jatt, it went from one brief to another, and in the end, we thought that we should make him look somewhat like a barbarian fakir.”

He went on to share another “silly” suggestion he had that the makers thought was “going a bit too far” and gross. “One disfigurement that I really wanted for the character, but everyone said, ‘No, no, now you’re going a bit too far,’ was that I wanted to sew one eye shut, as if he had lost an eye in one of his prizefights, somewhat inspired from Mads Mikkelsen’s Valhalla Rising. We settled for just one scar that goes down from his eyes to his cheek.”

But that wasn’t the “dumbest” suggestion he made. “I thought that would be like really cool [but] adding a tassel in his hair with a red ribbon was probably one of the dumbest suggestions I could have made because during the fight scenes it would come and whack me in the face. There was like this long piece of metal that was tied to the ribbon and to the lock of hair. It looks really cool, but it would hit me every time we would do a take.”

The suggestion not only slapped Fawad in the face every time he shot a scene but also made it hard for him to go to sleep. “Whenever I’d lie down, I’d experience some kind of vertigo, dizziness because the weight of it would pull on my scalp. So even when I would lie down, there would be a separate pillow for my hair. It would be lying on my side; you couldn’t just let it hang. I had weight.”

Moving on to how his health was affected while gaining up to 25kgs in less than two months, Fawad said he wishes he took professional advice before going through that. “This physical transformation, for me, was a bit taxing because of a condition I’ve had since the age of 17 – I am a Type 1 diabetic. Any kind of transformation, even when it comes to changing my diet and lifestyle, has a profound effect on my health and my physiology. And this was something else. I mean, I went from a horse to a rhino in a matter of one-and-a-half months.”

But Fawad didn’t care at that point. “I went in all guns blazing. It was aar ya paar. I didn’t think of the consequences and I guess, maybe, that’s how I’ve been most of my life. Once I get into something, I may pre-calculate it, but once I get into it, then it’s inconsequential what will happen. Call it bravery or being stupid on my part, but I think it paid off in the end, didn’t it?”

It surely did and the love The Legend of Maula Jatt is getting worldwide is proof of it. The original Maula Jatt wreaked havoc in Pakistani cinema and culture in a way that allowed many action-packed Punjabi films to follow suit and take risks.

Upon what the remake will do for Pakistani cinema, the Khuda Ke Liye actor added, “I feel that this is the most ambitious film made in recent Pakistani film history, or if I’m not being conservative, I would say in the entire Pakistani film history because of the sheer scale of it. Maula Jatt ignited a gandasa culture, for better or for worse, after which Punjabi films were coming out one after the other. The Legend of Maula Jatt, it’s a bit different because I feel this film takes from that culture, but it presents a new identity, a diverse identity of Pakistani mainstream cinema. ”

He continued to highlight the wild, high-budgeted side of the film that made a regional language film considered as a mainstream one. “I feel Maula Jatt adds to Pakistani cinema’s diversity and it will encourage filmmakers to be brave, to make something that is not in line with your conventional mainstream films of today, which are just paisa vasool. However, the most ambitious part of the film was that we kind of broke the stereotype of what a hero and a villain should look like, at least, right now in this industry. ”

Fawad also acknowledged that the “game” has already changed for local cinema with a Cannes-winning film Joyland being made alongside the mainstream masala-tadka films.

Concluding, Fawad shared how living with Maula Jatt for two years affected his lifestyle, for the worse. “I remember a habit that stuck with me was that I’d be done with my food in 30 seconds flat. I used to eat ravenously. Not because I was hungry, but because it had kind of become a habit. I actually started walking like Maula Jatt even when I was at home.  When I saw myself eating like an animal, I realised it wasn’t a pretty sight.”

Upon whether Maula got to keep a gandasa post the film, Fawad said it was the director’s well-deserved trophy. “If they give me a replica they have, then its fine, otherwise it’s okay too. Bilal deserves it.” The film is already minting millions worldwide. Upon how much money Fawad hopes for the film to make, he laughed, “If you ask me, I hope it makes 2,000crores, 3,000crores.”