You’ll always get to see something different from me, says John Abraham

He has back-to-back film promotion events and barely gets a breather these days, but John Abraham is a picture of calm. We catch up with the Dishoom actor at the outhouse he has built within his office campus. The wooden cabin of sorts is John’s place to cool it off. In the conversation that follows, he talks about his film choices, reuniting with Rohit Dhawan after Desi Boyz, playing peacemaker between the Dhawan brothers and more. Excerpts:

On film promotions: I know it’s a set template that all actors go all out and promote their film. I firmly believe that if the film is good, it will work. I was speaking with Sajid Nadiadwala, he and I are very close. He too kind of agreed with me. But he also said that there’s the fear that if the film didn’t work, they’d say it is because the actors didn’t promote it. It’s great to go out and promote your film, but there’s no guarantee that if you do that, people will go to the theatres to watch it. At the end of the day, the best barometer for a film working is word-of-mouth. I am one of those who believe that you don’t need to scream and dance to push a film.

Rohit Dhawan — from Desi Boyz to Dishoom Rohit has three great qualities — he’s a very young New York film school graduate, his content is bang on and he has his father’s (David Dhawan) sensibility to appeal to the masses. I think he has matured as a director, he has learnt so much more. Let me give you an example. In Desi Boyz he had to hold a shot for very long, as he didn’t have an alternative shot. So for this film, he was well prepared. He took multiple shots everywhere and he realised that if he needed to increase the pace of the film, he had to cut scenes faster. He was ruthless with us; he didn’t care and took shots from all angles. Even Varun would say ‘Bhaiya’ why are you doing this’ and he’d go ‘I need the film to be fast’.

Equation with Rohit Rohit worked with me when I was working with his father (David Dhawan) for a film called Hook Ya Crook. It didn’t release but it is one of my best films. Rohit was an assistant director then and he kept bouncing ideas. Eventually Desi Boyz happened. After that film, he kept sharing script ideas, which he wanted to pitch to others. So we became friends. He’d be like ‘John, how do I pitch this story to this actor’ and I would be like, if it’s this actor, change the subject or push it more — as would be the case. So our relationship is very unselfish. It’s never like ‘we have to work with each other again’.

Playing peacemaker between the brothers Seriously, that would happen a lot of times. Varun, like an excited kid would say, ‘Bhaiya I want to do it this way’ and Rohit would go, ‘no bro, just shut up and do it this way’. They’d get to a point where I would have to butt in and say ‘Listen to me, Varun, just do what Rohit says because if you don’t, he will keep making you do it’. Eventually Varun would see Rohit’s point. Sometimes I would also tell Rohit to allow Varun to give a shot the way he wanted. Since I am his senior, he’d listen to me, but since Varun is his little brother, he’d dismiss him. They have a very cute relationship.

Being choosy about films I haven’t found anything exciting enough but I think the ten best years of my film career are coming up right now. I think I am in a space where I can take chances. I could easily sign four to five films but I don’t need to. So, you will always get to see something different from me.