Varun Dhawan traces his celluloid journey, his love for brother Rohit and his father’s see-saw at the box-office

Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; September 28, 2017)

Today it’s hard to imagine Varun Dhawan as anything other than an actor but he surprises you by revealing that despite being director David Dhawan’ s son, thanks to his somewhat aloof older brother, Rohit, he didn’t grow up as a typical industry kid with stars in his eyes. His mother Karuna’s mantra — “Make money work for you”—would ring in his ears and Varun went on to do a course in business administration in London.

“After that, I applied for a job with a foreign bank. But midway through the interview, I was told that given all the theatre and drama classes I had packed into the extracurricular activities space, I was better suited for a career in the movies. I reinforced this observation by acting out scenes from films I’d grown up watching and by the end of the interview, a complete stranger had figured out which Dhawan I was and was advising me to follow my heart,” Varun reminisces with the refreshing candour that shines through his performances.

The 30-year-old actor however chose the longer route to the stars instead of using his father’s connections. It wasn’t easy but he enrolled in every possible acting class in town, watched Dev Anand and Shammi Kapoor films to learn the craft from the masters of commercial Hindi cinema, assisted Karan Johar on his directorial, My Name Is Khan, made a short film on drugs, gave countless auditions and did everything possible as he waited for a maker to come and tell his dad, “I’ve signed Varun for my film.”

It was a long and at times a frustrating wait, but finally it was the short film Adrenochrome as part of his show reel that got him his long-awaited break. “I got a call from a big production house but when I told Karan about it he told me not to go, saying he’d make a film with me. That film was Student Of The Year,” Varun smiles five years later, days before his ninth release, Judwaa 2.

The flashback trail brings back another memory. Varun as a boy of 10 going to Dimple preview theatre for a screening of the original Judwaa and being introduced to the original hero. “This was the first time I was interacting with him and I told him politely, ‘Hi, nice meeting you, Salman uncle.’ Salman who must have been around 30 at the time, told me to call him bhai and not uncle which I still do. And 20 years later, I’m all set to reboot that film, re-creating some of bhai’s iconic moves in the “Tan Tana Tan” song with Taapsee (Pannu) which has become a much-shared GIFF image today and reliving the famous bathtub scene from Judwaa. In fact, when I was shooting this scene, the time-tested lines from the original were playing on my mind and I requested my dad to let me improvise with them since the audience would be expecting it,” he shares.

However, on another level, he promises that this will be a new Judwaa despite it still being Sajid Nadiadwala, David Dhawan, Anupam Kher, Ganesh Acharya and Anu Malik’s film. Demonstrating a sharp insight of economics, Varun says that today, given the expensive ticket prices, the audience needs to be wooed to the theaters with Imax or 3D technology that can’t be enjoyed on laptops or iPads. “We have a lot of stunts and visual effects, including a bicycle chase on the lines of X Games, an annual extreme sports event, the kind you’ve never seen before on the Hindi screen. I’ve also requested the studios to reduce the ticket rates for morning shows so students can watch the film,” he asserts.

He goes on to reveal that having seen two brothers almost strangle each other in Tom Hardy’s double take, Legend, he insisted that they up the physical activity between the twins in the film. “So you see Raja grab Prem by the neck and the latter pushing him back angrily, something you wouldn’t expect to see in a David Dhawan film,” he says.

Growing up, did Varun ever wish for a twin too, you wonder, and he laughs, “No, I had Rohit and I was happy with my big brother though I’m not sure if he reciprocated my feelings given that he was always the one who was pulled up when, during an argument, I would start bawling. That would make me angry and aggressive, even if it was our mother who was reprimanding him. It was okay for me to fight with Rohit but if anyone else said a word against him, you couldn’t hold me back,” he shares, bunching his fists in reaction.

He goes on to add that it was because of this overwhelming sibling love that he still feels towards Rohit that he’s always wanted to do a ‘brother’ film and a Judwaa reboot felt just right. “I have seen all the twin films, from Ram Aur Shyam and Seeta Aur Geeta to Chalbaaz and Angoor which being a huge Sanjeev Kumar fan, is my all-time favourite. I’ve seen Angoor 20 times. Like Judwaa it’s sourced in Shakespeare’s play, Comedy of Errors. Every generation has had its Judwaas. For that matter when I was in Hyderabad recently, I met Nagarjuna and recalled that his 1994 action-comedy, Hello Brother, was the Telugu original of Judwaa,” he points out.

There’s a buzz about his twin caper, which opens this Friday. But this hasn’t been a good year for Bollywood with just half-a-dozen films, which includes Varun’s romcom, Badrinath Ki Dulhania, doing well commercially. He’s not unduly worried with satellite, digital and music rights fetching good prices. “We need a strong four-day weekend worldwide to see us through,” he shrugs, adding that it’s important today to not just control budgets but also promotions. “You have to be honest about what you are making so the audience doesn’t feel cheated.”

Judwaa 2 brings Varun’s director-dad back from hibernation. In the ’80s, David was once the baadshah of the box-office, before he faded away, only to bounce back with new partners, Salman and Anil Kapoor. Prod Varun on the ups and downs in his dad’s life and he acknowledges that while his parents took it in their stride and prepared them for the lows, Rohit and he were slightly unsettled. “But as pointed out by Newton in his third law, ‘for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction’ so what comes up, goes down and vice versa. And dad always bounced back with a Partner and a Mujhse Shaadi Karogi. It’s just that his strike-rate was so good that anything less was a downer. He was the most successful director of the ’90s,” he says, adding that like Govinda and his dad, Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Ranveer Singh are the Jodi No. 1 of today while he shares a good tuning with his Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania and Badrinath Ki Dulhania director Shashank Khaitan.

Prod him on his heroines and he says that apart from Alia Bhatt, he makes a good match with Shraddha Kapoor and Jacqueline Fernandez. “Also, I think the audience got a kick from my pairing with Nawaz (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) in Badlapur because we are such polar opposites,” Varun says. What about Taapsee? “She is a cool customer who can change the game. She came into Judwaa 2 with the experience of 17 South films. With her to guide me, I felt I was in safe hands.”

He refuses to divulge anything about his upcoming projects — Shoojit Sorcar’s October which rolls soon and Sui Dhaaga Made In India with Anushka Sharma. There’s also talk of a Karan film, being referred to as Shiddat, reportedly featuring Sanjay Dutt, Sridevi, Sonakshi Sinha, Alia and Varun, which he is again mum about, joking that Abhishek Varman is “a very strict director and doesn’t like anyone going against the rules”. He’s equally evasive about steady date Natasha Dalal, insisting that the only ‘Prem’ he wants to talk about is his character from Judwaa 2 who embodies all the goodness of his brother.

Meanwhile, he’s got himself a new apartment but doesn’t know when he’ll move in. Pointing out that he’s been working non-stop for 200 days with no holiday coming up before October wraps up, Varun is happy living with his parents. “I’ve just returned after five days of promotions. I’m living out of a suitcase and loving it. I’ve returned from Ahmedabad with 'Sanedo Sanedo Judwaa 2 Sanedo' ringing in my ears, met Saurav Ganguly in Kolkata, binged on mishti doi and seen Messi pop up in the LED displays of the city’s Durga Puja pandals,” he says.