The Sculpting Of A Dream

SONU SOOD has been in the news for all the right reasons in the last two years. One Happy New Year led to a string of them. His new-found friendships and working with Khan (Farah) and Chan (Jackie), his setting up a production house as a tribute to his late father, his first home production, his newly honed dancing skills courtesy Prabhudeva, his extreme levels of fitness...so Suguna Sundaram Court Martials the super-fit star inching his way up to superstardom unhurriedly. Unwarranted. Just raining on his parade. But Sonu comes out shining, despite a 1000 preoccupations that take his time, as he micro-manages his film production readying, for release. 

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While you don’t have a single Hindi film release in 2016, you have two Mandarin films and one South film releasing. You also have a Pakistani film releasing this year. Are you so confident of your Bollywood fan base, or haven’t there been good enough offers?

Yeah. I was doing two Chinese films this year, the film with Jackie Chan which I shot for 7-8 months, and across four countries. The other film I shot for was with Zhang Han, again, another really big and popular actor in China. As for the Pakistani film, I was approached for it and I played the narrator. It was a small guest appearance for a friend who’s a singer who made this film, and they wanted me as a narrator in the film. You know my story with the South. I will always continue to do films in the South, that is where I began and earned my name first.

Your South films are far bigger than your Hindi films. And in your total journey of 17 years, of which 15 are in Bollywood, your landmark films have been few and far between. A big film with an ensemble cast, like Happy New Year may have made loads of money. But for an actor of intelligence who also does a Yuva and an Arundhati, how do you reconcile the input demanded of you as an actor in these films?

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with Farah and the whole team of Happy New Year, they were brilliant. I would still say shooting for Happy New Year has been one of the most special experiences in my life, from all the films I’ve done. I enjoyed the whole process of that film’s making. As an actor, I won’t say that Happy New Year is one of the best films I’ve done till date, it’s not. But like I said earlier, my films have all been step-wise progressions, thankfully. Commercially it made sense, but acting wise, I’ve done better roles. But I really loved the whole process of Happy New Year.