103On a balmy Saturday night in June, I get a
brief message from Hrithik Roshan’s team:
“Tomorrow, 1pm, YRF Studios.” Waiting for
an interview slot with the actor has been an
unnerving experience – four times a meeting has
been xed; four times it’s been cancelled.
It’s been a rough week for the actor, with
a barrage of controversial tweets by Rangoli
Chandel, Kangana Ranaut’s sister and
manager, who’s accused the Roshan family of
mistreating Sunaina Roshan, Hrithik’s sister,
who, in turn, has tweeted about “living in hell”.
The tweetstorm followed an announcement by
Roshan a month earlier, advancing the release
date of his lm Super 30, to avoid a clash with
the Kangana Ranaut-starrer Judgementall Hai
Kya. He’d taken this decision in order to save
himself “the personal trauma and toxic mental
violence this would cause.”
When I check the actor’s Twitter timeline
for a response to this latest provocation,
absurdly – comically – the most recent tweet I
see is a video of him pumping weights, with the
accompanying text:
No more excuses holding you back. Get ready to
kickstart your fitness goals with
@hrxbrand
Your time is now! #KeepGoing.
#MyntraEndOfReasonSale #TooBigToMiss #HRX
The next afternoon, a bright and sunny day,
Roshan joins me in the Yash Raj Film Studios’
atrium-café, with a bounce in his step. He’s dressed
in a black T-shirt, hoodie, joggers and midnight-
blue ASICS sneakers. He’s quick to notice my neon
lime green jersey, with the phrase “no thanks”
printed on it. I wore it because it would resonate
with his current state of mind, I tell him. Especially
the prospect of having to speak to a journalist at
this moment. He laughs heartily.I
t’s a chaotic time for the actor, between
overseeing post-production on Super 30,
set to release this month, and completing
the shoot for his untitled lm with Yash
Raj Studios with Tiger Shroff (unof cially
being called Tiger Vs Hrithik). He’s also working
out for three hours every day, but it isn’t only to
maintain those abs. At 45, he wants to “remain t
and ghting, to be pain-free and feel normal.” He
has a mobile gym, and outside his vanity van a pair
of light Adidas weights and a blue Bosu ball occupy
pride of place.
These days, Hrithik Roshan is consciously
choosing lms that deeply move him, because then
“the rest of the journey becomes easy. I’m not a very
good actor, I’m not the ttest guy. I’m the opposite
of these things, so movies for me are a very dif cult
thing [to make]. It takes a lot out of me to do the
simplest things that other actors do instinctively.
That’s why I need to nd stories that fuel me to go
through the entire process – to wake up at 6 o’clock,
to take the aching back, knees, shoulders, the broken
bones – and do what I do. Super 30 just hit it out of
the park for me, especially the climax.”
He enjoyed working on the lm so much that he
brie y contemplated doing more lms that were
less physically challenging, before catching himself
mid-thought: “Woah, dude, that’s allowing yourself
to get old.” So when he was offered a gruelling,
high-octane action lm with Yash Raj Studios, he
was tempted to sign on, but on the condition that
Tiger Shroff would also do the lm. “After doing
movies like Kaabil and Super 30, I needed a force
that would drive me to be my best. I was getting
too complacent, and I felt only Tiger had the power
to stand in front of me,” he laughs, “and make me
look like a piece of shit. I don’t think anyone else
would’ve ignited me the way he has.”