I got a shock when I saw myself: Sanjay Dutt

Sanjay Dutt admits he’s never been happier in his life. “Having Manyata as my wife is the best thing that could have ever happened,” he smiles contentedly. Interestingly, at a time when he’s finally at peace, the star has just shot for a “totally dark” character in producer Karan Johar’s
Agneepath.

“I was spellbound by the way Karan (writer-director Karan Malhotra) conceived his Kancha Cheena and happy that I was getting a chance to show people what I was capable of as an actor. But I also wondered how I could play someone so chillingly evil,” he admits.

Shrugging off all comparisons to Mukul S Anand’s Agneepath (1990), Sanjay says that this film is “more earthy, raw and grounded”.

He also points out that while Danny Denzongpa’s Kancha Cheena had hair, his head is clean-shaven. “We’d earlier thought of going in for prosthetics but when we reached Diu it was so hot that the make-up started to melt. That was a problem because it took three hours to put it on and two hours to take it off. So, I decided to go bald. And when I looked into the mirror after my session with the barber, I got a shock because I’d never had a mundan (tonsure) even as a child,” he says.

Sanjay’s twins, Shahraan and Iqra, were confused by their dad’s new look too but they quickly got used to it.

“Now they are wondering why small, prickly hair have suddenly sprouted,” the actor laughs, adding that he would drive down from Diu every Saturday to spend the weekend at home.

“It was a long ride after a physically gruelling schedule but the children are too young and I didn’t want to disconnect with them for 60 days,” he reasons.

The first look of Agneepath was unveiled with Salman Khan’s Bodyguard last Friday and received an overwhelming response.

The trailer on the Dharma Productions channel on YouTube got over 60,500 hits in 48 hours, making it one of the five most-viewed last week.

Also, it was trending on other websites with the khalnayak (villain) grabbing eyeballs.

Co-star Hrithik Roshan is confident that Sanjay’s Kancha Cheena will be as unforgettable as Mr India’s Mogambo.

That draws a smile, “Well, Mogambo and Sholay’s Gabbar Singh are my all-time favourite bad men.”

(Roshmila Bhattacharya, Hindustan Times)