Ali Abbas Zafar is in a happy space right now. He tells me the real reason for his happiness is that the people have taken to his film Sultan in a big way. Vox populi, vox dei, as they say. The Gods have not only spoken in favour of the film but have emptied their coffers as well. His Sultan has all the trappings of being one the biggest blockbusters of all time, having crossed Rs 285 crores India collection at the time of writing and is in all probability set to enter the 300-crore club. He’s glad that the film has lived up to its hype. “When expectations go through the roof, then it becomes the director’s responsibility to meet those expectations and I’m glad we were able to do that,” he explains. He’s extra happy that Salman Khan went out of his way to try something different for his film.
Ali was born and brought up in Dehradun. He was a huge fan of Salman while growing up and says he has watched Salman’s films in single-screen theatres. “I watched Karan Arjun some four-five times in theatre. Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!, Khamoshi, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam… Salman was brilliant in all those films. Today, when people say he isn’t an actor, they should go back to all these films.” Ali shares that what he liked most about Salman was his honesty. “What you see is what you get with him. When people say that Salman ka connect hai, what they are actually connecting to is his honesty.” He says that’s what they tried to do with Sultan’s character – keep his stardom intact but create an honest-to-goodness-grassroots pehelwan that the masses would instantly connect with. “People like watching him shirtless. He said that iss baar shirt kya, pant bhi utaar dete hain but do it in such a way that it shouldn’t look like a gimmick.”
The director met Salman Khan for the first time on the set of Kabir Khan’s Ek Tha Tiger and that’s where it all started. Kabir was shooting an action sequence in Ireland and Aditya Chopra asked Ali to help his friend out. “That is the first time I properly interacted with Salman Khan. The bizarre thing is that Bodyguard got released just a week before my Mere Brother Ki Dulhan. So the first thing he told me was, ‘yaar, tune toh mera second weekend tod diya,’” he guffaws. He was writing Gunday at the time and Salman added some invaluable insights. Later, he got inspired to write Sultan after watching the exploits of Sushil Kumar at the Olympics. He wrote a ten-page draft and took it to Salman, who immediately greenlighted the project. “After twenty minutes narration, he said that yaar I loved the character, I’m doing this film.” Ali explains Adi Chopra was as excited about casting Salman as he was and couldn’t see anyone else playing the title role.
The director says he travelled across India and met various wrestlers in order to get to know the life of pehelwans from a close perspective. His first draft that he submitted to Adi was based on his findings. They went to Salman with a ready script and Ali asserts that Salman’s enormous experience helped fine tune the story further. “Most of his contribution came on the sets because he is an instinctive actor. I think when you have an experience of 25 years, when you have worked with so many directors; you understand instinctively what works and what doesn’t. His experience was the strength of Sultan.”
Ali was impressed with the dedication Salman showed towards the film. The actor learned wrestling, Haryanvi and mixed martial arts as well. Then, he went through several weight changes too. “At one point of time, he fluctuated between 78 and 82 then he went up to 90 and then he touched 100kg. The incredible thing about it is that he did it while shooting the film,” he reveals. Ali gushes that Salman is like an encyclopedia on body building and knows exactly what to do. “There were days when he was frustrated looking at himself and saying agar weight nahin kam hua to kaise hoga. But he managed. Normally, when you go through drastic weight changes you go through several mood swings. But he was as normal as always.”
Salman is extremely shy, so it was difficult for Ali to convince him to appear in a langot. “He kept talking about wearing shorts and I kept reminding him that Indian pehelwans wear a langot. He is a very shy guy. But at the same time if he gets fond of people he will do anything for them and luckily he got fond of his wrestling coach Jagdish Kali Raman, who is from Delhi. When I wanted to shoot his introduction scene, Jagdish told him it would look more convincing if he wore a langot.” He adds that Salman personally supervised the making of his special langot. At the time of the shooting, Salman thought there would be a crowd of 50-60 people but he never anticipated 6000 people would turn up. “He came up to me and said that you have cheated me.
I said that Bhai, it’s your introduction scene. It has to be big. When he got out of his robe there was hardly any ruckus. He was normal and comfortable in front of everyone
after that.” He reveals that Salman has done all the action in the film himself. “There is hardly a body double because we mostly shot him wrestling and you can’t cheat that. He said that I don’t want to put anyone in trouble. I will do the scenes myself. I think that shows in the film.” A lot of actresses had said no for Aarfa’s role which finally went to Anushka Sharma. “I shared the script with Anushka and she loved it,” informs Ali. “She said that everything is fine but my body is not a wrestler type. I said that it’s a myth that all wrestlers have to be stocky and muscular. You fight in a certain weight category. I showed her videos of wrestlers who were exactly her body type performing at national and international level. She couldn’t understand why other heroines had rejected the film as she felt the script was quite a steal.” He adds that Anushka picked up on the nuances of wrestling quite quickly. “We assigned her trainers and she worked hard on getting the body language right. She wanted to look good as a wrestler on screen. Her dedication was amazing.” He informs she also made Salman look real. “Her approach to acting is so real that when she was opposite him the scenes looked realistic,” he states.
Ali is a big fan of Hrishikesh Mukherjee. But his films are different from the veteran director’s. He says he tried to make a Hrishikesh Mukherjee kind of a film in Mere Brother Ki Dulhan. “It was a sweet film showing interaction between two families. And I would love to do a light-hearted comedy film again. But the problem is I don’t like repeating a genre. Gunday was different from MBKD, Sultan is different from Gunday.” He says it’s the safest bet to repeat a genre but he likes to march to a different drum. “Ten years from now, I will look back and notice that I’ve attempted different genres. The hit-flop ratio doesn’t really bother me. People go to the theatre and forget a film after a while, whether it’s good or bad, your producers forget it even if it makes money. But a film stays with the director always.” Ali is now taking a break. He plans to go to his hometown in Dehradun and spend some time with his family. He also has plans of becoming a producer. He is aware that the audience is expecting Sultan 2 now and he says that if he finds a good story he will definitely work on a sequel. “I’ve already written the script for my next film, which would be produced by Yash Raj. As for working with Salman again, who knows…”