John Abraham, says director Nagesh Kukunoor, is a better actor than most shirt-dropping scripts allow him to be, and ‘Aashayein’, proves just how far the Bollywood star can go.

The 37-year-old star lost 16kg for the role, which Kukunoor says is one of his finest to date. Critics seem to agree if the weekend reviews are anything to go by.

But after his last two films, ‘Bombay to Bangkok’ and ‘8x10 Tasveer’ flopped, the Hyderabad-born filmmaker is hoping this film pays back its Rs100 million (Dh7.8m) investment in totality.

The story of a compulsive gambler who finally hits the jackpot but realises he has only 90 days to live, Kukunoor’s tenth film is in UAE cinemas now and it sees the director return to form with the sort of smallish, indie films that first got him noticed.

Emirates 24|7 talked to him ahead of the release.
 
It’s been nearly two years since you finished ‘Aashayein’. What drew you to the subject?
I’ve always been looking at doing a film that dealt with the topic of death in a way that didn’t push people away. It’s a magical story, really, of what one man does with this immense fortune he has suddenly come into. You can look at life either as a regular series of events or see the magic of those events – or not, and I wanted to try and show that.

My brother is an oncologist and he often tells me about the gamut of reactions he sees when people are told they only have a short time left to live. That’s always fascinated me and I wanted to turn that around, look at it from the first person point of view.
 
We don’t often see films dealing with death at the Indian box-office, though?
Well, I’ve always written stories about things that fascinate me, I never play the box office game, simply because you never know what the audience wants from one minute to the next. It’s a myth that if you deal with taboo subjects such as death, you’re going to scare away audiences – it’s only the producers who are scared! Audiences are always open, particularly if the film is about hope, about learning to live, as ‘Aashayein’ is.
 
But come on, surely redemption is a cliché?
Clichés don’t scare me, as long as they’re done well. In fact, clichés are redone all the time, every story has been told before, the only challenge is to do it differently. I’ve tried, I hope I’ve avoided the trap – the audience will tell me if I’ve failed.
 
Why was the film delayed?
For the simple reason that there were differences between the producer [Percept Pictures] and the distributor [Big Pictures]. It was a monetary issue that took almost a year to resolve. But once that was sorted out, around January this year, we decided August was the best time to release it, during Ramadan.
 
Surely that’s the worst time, when nobody is in cinemas?
Not really. In India, the movie-going audience is hugely divided between three markets: the A and B cities [metropolitan and smaller cities], which are primarily served by multiplexes and the C markets, which almost entirely feature single-screen cinemas. The first two are unaffected by Ramadan, and multiplexes still do healthy business during the period.
 
So the film will make a return on its Dh7.8m cost?
That’s anybody’s guess, but I’d like to think it will. I’ve always had a healthy return in terms of films.
 
Except your last film, ‘8x10 Tasveer’, which was a flop despite starring Akshay Kumar. Is that an indication of what you’re good at, that you’re not good at making more commercial fare?
The mere presence of Akshay Kumar meant that ‘8x10 Tasveer’ had a much bigger budget than it might have with smaller stars.

It wasn’t commercial in the Bollywood sense, because there was no song and dance, it was edited like a thriller. But it suffered most from last year’s producers’ strike, and was thrust into theatres with no marketing. A film of that size, with a star of Akshay’s calibre, needs a publicity build-up of at least three or four months. People just didn’t know it was being released.
 
So are you going to continue making smaller films?
I keep writing scripts, some need to be directed in the space of an indie film, others as big-budget movies. Each needs to be tackled in its own space. Over my ten-year filmography, I’ve always fought being labelled, I’ve tried to make the sort of film a story requires, I’ve never stuck to a genre. If a story requires big stars, I’m not going to do my best to get one.
 
Can we expect more films aimed at expatriate or Non-Resident Indians, like your early work?
That label of being an NRI filmmaker was totally coincidental. I told the stories in those films from my experiences at the time, but having been in India for the last six or eight years, it’s a different set of experiences shaping my stories. ‘Hyderabad Blues’ and ‘Bollywood Calling’ were told from an outsider’s point of view, I can’t tap into that because I’m very much an insider now.
 
What happened to your film about the singer Kishore Kumar?
That’s one of those dreams that doesn’t seem to get realised. I had everything lined up, but it just never all clicked into place. Let’s see.
 
And Subhash Ghai? Are you going to work with him again?
I’ve worked with him before, I don’t see why not. I read somewhere that we weren’t speaking to each other, but that isn’t the case, I still see him at parties and socially, so we’re very much on talking terms.
 
OK. Tell us about your next film, you’re working on a love story?
I’m not totally ready to talk about it, but yes, it is a love story that is told from a lonely person’s point of view. It’s one of those quiet, hill-station movies. It’ll be shot on a medium budget, with hopefully an all-new cast.
 
So does ‘Aashayein’ change the perception of John Abraham as Bollywood’s body beautiful into a thinking woman’s actor?
With absolutely no sense of false humility, I can say that if this isn’t the best performance of his career, it’ll definitely stand as one of best. The film shows a new side to his talent, it opens him up.

I think ‘Aashayein’ will also see John’s pulling power at the box office, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that there’s enough goodwill for him out there to bring audiences in.