Chunky Panday adds he too had to turn down Khudgarz because of date problems; clarifies he hasn’t signed a film with daughter Ananya yet
Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 10, 2020)

“Would you believe, I was banned even before my first film released,” asks Chunky Panday, going on to inform that while they were filming Aag Hi Aag, there was a film industry strike and those who continued shooting were blacklisted. “Since we were in Bangalore, stopping work would have led to huge financial losses. My seniors, Dharmendra and Shatrughan Sinha, had too many films on the floors, so the axe fell on this 22-year-old newcomer. But thanks to my producer Pahlaj Nihalani’s intervention, the ban was lifted in a week.” The film opened slowly, had picked up by Tuesday and by the end of the first week, was a hit.

Chunky has more surprises up his sleeve. “Tezaab was offered to Govinda first,” he reveals, adding that since the actor had got very busy after Ilzaam and writer-director N Chandra wanted a chunk of dates, the role of Babban came to him on the rebound. “I’d auditioned for a film called Roshni before Aag Hi Aag and though I didn’t land that role, Chandra promised to return with a big film. I’m lucky he saw me in Babban and so, shot some extra scenes with me, even giving me the evergreen ‘So Gaya Yeh Jahaan’ before the heavy climax,” shares Chunky, recalling how, while filming the song, Anil Kapoor and he had gone to a five-star hotel coffee shop at 3 am to grab a bite. “The shocked manager looked us up and down and asked if he should call the doctor. That’s when we realised we were still wearing our blood-splattered costumes.”

“So Gaya Yeh Jahaan” is one of the film’s highlights, along with “Ek Do Teen”. The latter, according to Chunky, was an afterthought. Laxmikant-Pyarelal were all set to record “Tu Mera Tota Main Teri Maina”, inspired by the Marathi song “Java Naveen Popat Ha”. It was only after Pahlaj and Chunky informed them that they had already shot it for Paap Ki Duniya. That’s when they zeroed in on “Ek Do Teen,” which was such a hit that when the advance booking counters opened at Gaiety-Galaxy theatres on Monday, the queue was a mile long. “Suddenly, someone noticed a shoot going on at the nearby Bandra station. It came as a shock to those waiting to buy tickets to learn that the man sitting atop a train was Anil Kapoor and he was shooting for Tezaab,” Chunky guffaws, pointing out that since the title didn’t need to be censored, they could take that shot five days before his film opened on November 11, 1988, to a rapturous response.

Paap Ki Duniya and Mitti Aur Sona, which opened in the same year, made Chunky a star, and soon he was so busy, that Khudgarz went to Govinda on the rebound, because this time, he didn’t have the dates. The two actors came together for the blockbuster, Aankhen. According to Chunky, during a Sunday meeting in ’92 with director David Dhawan, writer Anees Bazmee, Govinda and him, Pahlaj announced that he wanted to make a film in six months on the lines of the in-progress Andaz Apna Apna and release it before Rajkumar Santoshi’s laugh riot. “We started shooting in Hyderabad in October-November and the film opened on April 9, ’93 to full houses,” Chunky flashbacks.

Cut to 2009 and Kambakkht Ishq. Chunky was in Los Angeles while the film was being shot there and producer Sajid Nadiadwala approached him for a two-scene appearance. “I got a designer suit too, but then learnt that since I didn’t have a work visa, I couldn’t shoot in the US. When I went to return the suit, Sajid told me to keep it as a signing amount, confident we’d do another film together,” he reminisces.

Soon after, he ran into actor-director Sajid Khan, who told him about a role in his next, that everyone wanted him to play. But Sajid suggested he sign up to play the Italian hotelier, Aakhri Pasta, in Housefull (HF). “He’d been modelled on Sujit Kumar’s character, a flamboyant Italian agent, Marconi, in The Great Gambler. Everyone loved him and he’s been a part of the franchise since,” says a delighted Chunky.

Meanwhile, on the first Sunday after Housefull 3’s release, he auditioned for Srijit Mukherji’s post-Partition drama, Begum Jaan, with HF jokes being cracked all around him. Kabir was a vicious killer, a character Chunky had always wanted to play. Sujeeth, who saw the film in Hyderabad, was impressed that Aankhen’s happy-go-lucky Munnu could pull off such a dark and disturbing role and signed him as the villain of his ambitious Saaho. “I’m not a method actor, but while shooting for this film at Ramoji Rao Studios, I kept to myself and was unusually short-tempered even away from the camera,” he says, proudly pointing out that one got to see two sides to him last year.

This year too, he’s balancing between a dark and a comic character in two big films that have been thrown off gear by the pandemic. He refuses to divulge details but insists neither is Fighter, featuring Vijay Deverakonda and his daughter Ananya. “I’d love to play Ananya’s father, but right now, what you’re hearing are just rumours. I’d wanted my daughter to be a doctor like my parents, but she chose to follow me into the movies and I was so proud and thrilled when she bagged a Filmfare Award which has eluded me. I’ve told her every film is a kundali and it’s for her to chart her own destiny,” he avers, sounding like a real-life papa.

And will younger daughter Rysa also follow in their footsteps? “She’s a good singer. She’ll be a rockstar,” he promises.

Chunky Panday on his actress-daughter being trolled online and playing role model to Saif Ali Khan in their upcoming film
Akash Bhatnagar (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 9, 2020)

After Saaho and Housefull 4 in 2019, Chunky Panday is gearing up for Jawaani Jaaneman, which features Saif Ali Khan and Tabu, and marks the acting debut of Pooja Bedi’s daughter, Alaia F. In the coming-ofage story, Chunky plays an old man who refuses to act his age.

“It was difficult for me because mentally, I am like a five-year-old. Here, I had to play a 50-something man pretending to be a 25-year-old,” he jokes, adding that his character serves as a role model to Saif’s. Questions about reuniting with his Bullett Raja (The Tigmanshu Dhulia-directed 2013 gangster film) co-star send him down the memory lane. “Saif and I are like a house on fire on the sets. It was better with this film as I play the owner of a nightclub that his character frequents. The shoot was crazy. The only problem was that the crowd and the alcohol weren’t real,” Chunky confesses.

Chunky has worked with Pooja in the 1993 film Lootere. Now, he shares screen space with her daughter. “I see Pooja’s lovely eyes in Alaia F. She is a fabulous actor and it felt like I had my own daughter on the set. She is like a package of fire,” he beams.

The actor believes that he is in the golden age of his career, and it all began with Housefull. “The birth of Pasta is almost like a James Bond series. He has a licence to kill, I have a licence to thrill. But Daniel Craig wants to leave his series after five films, while I would never do that with mine,” he chuckles. He is even more kicked about playing negative characters. “They are getting the beast out of me, not just the best,” he quips.

Ask him about Ananya’s success and the proud father gloats. “Last year, my films did well, but the performance of my daughter’s films is even more exciting,” he says. Ananya was recently trolled for comparing his absence from Karan Johar’s chat show as a sign of struggle. It makes Chunky laugh. “The two times she really got trolled was when she called me Tony Stark and the second was this episode. I want to tell her to stop taking my name,” he confesses.

Being a star kid, Ananya’s love life is always in the news. How does he, as a father, handle that kind of chatter? “She’s 21, it would be abnormal if she didn’t have a boyfriend,” he reasons, adding, “I have been through this in my time, so I know how much of it is true. You’re ready for these things as an insider,” he signs off.

Madhureeta Mukherjee (BOMBAY TIMES; February 8, 2018)

When Akshay Kumar essayed the lead role in Toilet - Ek Prem Katha, we thought he had broken barriers. In his upcoming film, he wears a pink underwear with a sanitary napkin to drive home a point. Now, the actor is breaking ground. Some memes and mimes are calling it a ‘period’ film, we call it a landmark movie. It’s a film about the hygiene around a woman’s monthly cycle, a subject that men and women should have discussed together eons ago. It is about time they break the ice and bury the taboos. And it is about time that our superstars portray the real superheroes on screen. Move over, Superman and Batman, apna very own Pad Man is here. On the eve of his movie’s release, Akshay Kumar shares his thoughts on the asli hero (Arunachalam Muruganantham), the power of good cinema and the influence of the superwoman in his life, Twinkle Khanna. Read on…

This isn’t the story of the typical Bollywood hero, and neither is it a topic that is comfortably and openly spoken about. Tell us about your first reaction when Twinkle discussed it with you...
I believe in Twinkle’s decision, and I also believe that women understand things faster than men. So, when she told me the story and expressed her desire to make it into a film, I said, ‘Let’s go ahead and do it’. When I was trying to reach Arunachalam Muruganantham (the inventor of a low-cost sanitary pad manufacturing machine on whom the movie is based) to discuss it, he didn’t respond to me. Finally, Twinkle got through to him and he heard her out. Muruganantham doesn’t like talking to men, he believes that they are slow in such matters and it takes them a long time to understand.

The Pad Man challenge that has actors and people across society posing with a sanitary napkin in their hand has gone viral on social media. Was it your idea? It is indeed quite a movement on a subject that barely gets attention otherwise...
The whole idea started while we were shooting for Pad Man. We had taken some local actors for the shoot, and they had to hold a sanitary pad in their hand for a sequence, but they ran away because they didn’t want to do it. They said, ‘Hum paap ko apne haath mein nahin lenge’. That line stuck with me. Today, we have to break that belief and other taboos associated with it. When a man holds a sanitary pad in his hand and says that he is not ashamed of it — that is where the mindset begins to change. For me, Pad Man is already a hit, and it is not because of how much the film could earn, but because we have started a conversation that was much needed. The other day, I overheard a group of six-seven men talking outside my vanity van, and the topic of their discussion was sanitary napkins. Prior to this film, I have never heard men talk about sanitary napkins. Subjects like periods and sanitary napkins were spoken about in hushed tones. Twinkle’s conviction in the story gave me the power to do this film. Even when we were shooting the scene where I am wearing the pink underwear, it took me precisely 30 seconds to get into the part. Once Balki (director) started rolling the camera, it didn’t matter. Even if I have to wear pink underwear or a pad again, to bring awareness on menstrual hygiene, I will do it.

In an interview, Twinkle had said that humour, if used well, can explain and address almost any issue. Even while making a film like this, humour comes handy, right? While talking about serious social subjects, there is a fear of sounding too preachy…
You have to be true to the subject and the film. Yes, the film is entertaining, and there are emotions, songs, drama and tragedy, but we have treated the topic of menstrual hygiene with sensitivity and not tried to make fun of it. After Toilet - Ek Prem Katha released, I was told that a lot of people stopped going to villages to give bhaashans on things like shauchalay ghar pe banao, shauchalay saaf rakho, biwi ke liye yeh karo, woh karo... All they do is, raat ko parda (screen) lagatey hain aur Toilet - Ek Prem Katha dikhaate hain. Nobody is interested in listening to bhaashans, you’ve to talk to people in the way they understand best. The power of cinema is such that it enters deep inside and you can’t forget it. For instance, at some point, you must have read about the incidents that Airlift was based on, but I am sure that most of us wouldn’t remember it too well. But when it is made into a good, commercial movie, it stays with you. That is the impact of cinema.

Did Twinkle play a major role in your process of getting into the skin of the character? Did she spend a lot of time talking about how she has imagined your character, given that it’s her story and it is very close to her heart?
She was very involved as a producer. We always talk about a lot of things. Twinkle reads a lot, so she has more to tell me and I have a lot to learn from her. Whatever I have learnt on menstrual hygiene while making this film, I have learnt it from her. Before this film happened, I had never held a sanitary napkin in my hand. While growing up, no one in my family had told me to even buy one. I was aware that five-six dino ke liye periods aate hain. That’s all I knew. Somewhere, it is a man’s fault, and somewhere it is not entirely, because a subject like periods was not discussed in our homes from the beginning. Our mothers and sisters kept it a secret from the men of the house. That is the way it was, but we have to break those barriers in our minds, too. Men didn’t realise that periods is something that they need to know about and understand.

Talking about breaking barriers, you have spoken about how you have ‘deconstructed’ yourself. That’s a term that you have used in the past to describe the trajectory of your career. So, is a film like Pad Man a part of that effort?
I think that today, even if I am doing a film like Housefull, I will deconstruct myself and change the whole way of looking at it. When your work becomes your passion, everything changes. I wait to wake up in the morning and go to work. I ensure that I wrap up one film in two-and-a-half months, so that I can move on to my next film. That way, there is no time to get bored, because after shooting for a film for four months, it could get boring. I don’t give myself a chance to get bored of what I am doing.

But you were disciplined and hard-working even at the start of your career. At some point, you probably started believing that you had more potential than what we had seen. Could that be one of the reasons that urged you to rethink the choices in your career?
Yes, I was always disciplined, but when I started out, my purpose was to earn money. I think after movies like Sangharsh and Jaanwar (both in 1999), something changed for me. Then, acting ceased to be just a job and it turned into a passion. I started loving the process. Before that, it was like… chalo, let’s earn money. I will do some stunts, hang on to a helicopter, sing songs and go home. Also, at that point of time, I didn’t know any better. In a way, the industry folks and the media are also responsible for the switch that happened inside me. I was constantly called an action hero and my directors said that they wouldn’t cast me in a film, which had no action. I still remember that after looking at the rushes of one film, a director said, ‘Yaha movie dip khaati hai, ek kaam karo, Akshay ka action daal do’. I had become an actor who quickly filled in that space, so if the movie dipped at some point, they added my action scenes or songs there. So, a lot of things are responsible for the way I started viewing my career.

In one of our previous interviews, you had said that, ‘Every 10 years, there is a bus that drives into the next decade, and it is important to get on to that bus’. Well, we know that you are on that bus, but you are even driving it smoothly and the control is in your hands. That is different…
Well, actually, the 10-year-bus is a bigger bus; there is a mini bus which runs every year. It is important to catch both the buses. Sometimes, if you miss the mini bus, the next year will be a little difficult. But no worries, you will get a chance to hop on to the mini bus the year after that. The bigger bus is the one that you can’t miss, because that will be a big problem. This is how I view any kind of career, not just acting or the movies business.

Lastly, are you glad that you pushed the release date of your from January 26 to February and averted the big clash with Padmaavat? It just made better business sense, right?
I didn’t do it just from that point of view; I did it because of friendship. I have known Mr (Sanjay Leela) Bhansali for long and I have done two successful films (Rowdy Rathore and Gabbar Is Back) under his production. I couldn’t say ‘No’ to him. Most importantly, Padmaavat has gone through a lot and a huge amount of money has been invested in it. That money belongs to my industry, the movie industry. It is important that we support each other. Our industry needs to understand the fact that if any film works, it means the price and value of every actor and technician will rise considerably. With every film that works, the stock of the industry goes up. What generally happens here is that, when one actor or director’s movie doesn’t do well, I have heard people say, ‘Nahin chala, achcha hua’. They are not realising that the Bollywood stock will start dipping and it will obviously affect every actor in the industry. I wish to see a time when there is togetherness in the industry, so much that when someone’s movie is a hit, the rest of them rejoice and celebrate. If it doesn’t do well, they should mourn it, too. I feel blessed that I am getting so much support for my film and I am very thankful for that. If there is any kind of support that I can give any film, I will do it wholeheartedly. Any good and positive business person would think this way. Every film that works strengthens the industry.