Mumbai, June 01: Rahul Bose has always been unreservedly straightforward and doesn’t mince words when it comes to the tougher questions. The actor was in town recently to honor his commitment with an NGO and talks about films, offbeat cinema, kissing a man for his film “I Am” and much more. Excerpts …
Love life- “Non-existent”
“As usual there is nothing going on for me on the personal front. My life is completely boring. I’m a very private person and I share everything about my life with people on social networking sites but not my private private life. I have very little time for it so my personal life suffers the most. I certainly cannot sustain a relationship today between my foundation, my public appearances, my lecture circuit across the country and various other activities. I am involved with a lot of NGO’….my films, my rugby, takes a lot of time, so I have maybe one day off in about three or four months. Where’s the time?”
I kissed a man- “So what?”
“There shouldn’t be any hype about a man kissing another man. I did kiss a man in “I Am” but how is it any different from kissing a woman that I don’t know in my films. The pressure is always there and so are the nerves, but not because it is a man or a woman but because you have to do it to a complete stranger in front of so many other people, in front of the cameras and the film crew.”
Films- “Offbeat….I am 43 years old”
“I am not maintaining a balance between offbeat and mainstream cinema, it’s out of balance, it’s completely offbeat. I think those mainstream roles that I did have now finished for me because there are younger men who can do it now. There’s fresher talent and I am happy to do my offbeat films. Sure I’d be comfy playing an older role. Like you know for example “Lethal Weapon” had Mel Gibson playing a younger cop and Danny Glover played an older cop. So I don’t mind playing older roles.”
“I have just signed three films, all in the lead. One is about Hindu-Muslims, it’s called “Question” and Om Puri and I will be playing lead roles in it, there is no heroine. There’s another which is a strange love story. A third film-a Bengali film is in the loop. My films in Bengali have done very well in the past. The film is a Kaushik Ganguly film and I have accepted the role of a publisher.”
“Till September its going be choc-a-bloc. I was very busy year before last but last year it was only “I Am” and now again I am going to be very busy shooting.”
Six pack- “Not me, I am a complete athlete”
“I am getting back to some serious rugby this year after breaking my nose last year. I do seven different things on seven different days a week. I play rugby, I play squash, I run, I do yoga, I swim, I play badminton and I work out in the gym once a week. I am not the kind of person who wants to get beefed up and have abs, I am a complete athlete.”
Commitments- “NGO’s, lectures, sports…there’s no time”
“I deliver lectures about leadership, the past, present and future of Indian Cinema, the link between personal success and public commitment and how both can work together. I have delivered these lectures at Oxford, Harvard, MIT, Cambridge, to companies all across the country, IIT’s and IIM’s ….people are free to yawn, shout, heckle and leave while I lecture, it’s not a bad experience, it’s life.”
“I have been associated with several NGO’s and it keeps me on my toes. My friends wife died of cancer last year and it’s a painful experience. I have been associated with Terry Fox (a cancer research foundation) for the last two years and I was inspired by what Terry fox has done for something as wonderful as cancer research.”
–Agencies