Emraan Hashmi On Playing Azhar, His Son's Cancer And Not Worrying About Faliure

Emraan Hashmi Stars in films that most A-Listers would be suspicious of, refuses to attend Bollywood parties-Either for the photo.ops or to mingle with his colleagues-and manages to hold his own in an industry crouded with me-tools.

- Shweta Mehta Sen

I’ve decided to divide Emraan Hashmi’s career into three phases. Part One is the Murder-Zeher-Gangster era, where practically everything he starred in was a hit. This was inexplicable, because none of these films had the greatest scripts or an A-list cast. They had great music, mostly forgettable female leads and then they had Emraan — who miraculously pulled off roles that I can’t imagine anyone from the current crop taking on without looking ridiculous. This is also the time the ‘Serial Kisser’ moniker came into being (regrettably, he came up with it himself, as his new book Kiss of Life reveals). Ever since, every new film he’s starred in is immediately scrutinized to check for the number of kissing scenes it contains. Thus, Part Two doesn’t come as a surprise. Emraan decided it was finally time for more author backed performances, for his acting chops to shine. Strong roles in Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai, The Dirty Picture and Shanghai (the film didn’t do too well, but his performance was widely appreciated) followed in quick succession. This phase ended too early, though, and Part Three began in 2012 – which is the last time I saw an Emraan Hashmi performance I genuinely enjoyed. Four years later, he might be back with a film to end the drought. Azhar — a biopic of the tainted cricketer Mohammad Azharuddin — releases this month, and Emraan is very kicked about it. Parts of this movie were shot while his now-six-year-old son battled a rare form of paediatric cancer in Canada. His cure led to Emraan penning the aforementioned book, which largely serves as a guide for those whose loved ones are suffering from cancer, or who don’t have access to the amount and quality of medical information he did. The book’s success since its release last month has also inspired him to turn it into a documentary. Apart from this, the actor is also returning to his beloved “Bhatt camp&rdquo