My acting should speak as much as my physique - John Abraham

John Abraham is happy that in his upcoming film, Jhoota Hi Sahi, his performance overshadows his physical attributes.

MUMBAI: John Abraham has a physique that every man would love to possess, but the actor says he does not want his physical attributes to overshadow his performance, something he works equally hard at. He’s happy that this trend is reversed in his upcoming film Jhoota Hi Sahi.

“My physicality takes over a lot, it just precedes whatever I do. Even if I’m doing a sweet role, there is someone who would find it hot. I’m not apologetic about the way I look, but somewhere down the line the physicality keeps coming to the forefront,” Abraham said.

“So I’m trying to work around a parallel road where my performances are seen as much, because I really work at them,” he said.

The actor’s wishes were fulfilled in Abbas Tyrewala’s Jhoota Hi Sahi. He managed to keep his well-toned body and macho look on the back burner and play a normal guy who works in a book store. The film is slated to hit screens on Friday.

“When Abbas spoke to me about the character, I was not worried about the way I would look, because I think the look completely befitted the character; I was worried about whether I would be able to carry off the look,” said Abraham.

“When I saw the film, I fell in love with my character because this is probably the only film of mine where I have seen the first three minutes of the film looking at John Abraham on screen and after that I forgot that it’s John and I was concentrating on only Sid (the character) and that’s the victory of the character and the director,” he added.

To make Abraham suit the character, director Abbas Tyrewala didn’t let the 37-year-old actor go to the gym for many months before and during production.

“Abbas used to follow me to the gym, then it just became too much to handle. He used to say ‘get out of the gym’. He said he wants a guy who is completely soft in his body, just very normal, who works in a book store.”

“But I wanted to gym at least a little bit because I’m an ectomorph. I have a tendency to lose weight, so I started losing weight and made Abbas Tyrewala very happy. When I saw the film, I hugged him and said ‘thank you for not allowing me to work out’,” said Abraham.

But wasn’t he skeptical about changing his look for a film?

“Every actor has got the fear of change and what happens is that some of us succumb to that fear and say that we won’t fit the genre that audiences are used to seeing us in.

“Others want to get out and take a risk, now whenever the going is good for me in terms of a look, I keep changing it and I enjoy that space. When I had long hair, people liked it and a lot of people started keeping long hair but then I went ahead and changed it,” Abraham said.

“So I believe that you need to take risks but calculated ones. At the same time I believe that you need to be a trendsetter and not a follower. So it’s important for me to keep changing my look,” added Abraham.

Jhoota Hi Sahi also stars Pakhi- the film’s scriptwriter and Tyrewala’s wife, opposite John.

Abraham was also proud of the fact that the film got a U certificate from the censor board.

“This film has just got a U certificate. It’s absolutely clean. It doesn’t have foul language, doesn’t even have a villain and it’s the cleanest, most beautiful film. Even the members of the censor board said that after long, we have seen a film so clean without any double meanings,” said the actor.

Published in The Express Tribune October 21^st, 2010.