Vinod Khanna to make comeback

Thursday, November 02, 2006
Mumbai (UNI): Actor-politician Vinod Khanna, who is making a comeback in Bollywood with three movie, says he does not regret his decision to embark on a spiritual journey with Osho and quitting the industry at the peak of his career more than two decades ago. ''I have always enjoyed acting. But I am a weird person and make my own choices. At that point of time, I felt my spiritual journey was more important so I returned signing amount of 30 films and quit the industry. After I started working again, I realized that I wanted to do something for the country and joined politics,'' the 60-year-old debonair actor, who was considered a strong contender to challenge Amitabh Bachchan the one man industry of the 1970s, said while interacting with mediapersons on the sets of his movie Risk which releases on December 15.

Khanna says that being a minister in the BJP government for three and-a-half-years prevented him from taking up film assignments. ''Now that I am three-time MP, I am settled in my constituency and several primary issues that needed urgent attention have been resolved and settled like connectivity to airports, railway tracks and other basic infrastructure,'' he added. The former Union Minister of State for Culture and Tourism said he had no political ambitions and was content looking after his constituency Gurdaspur in Punjab.

Khanna has just completed Vishram Sawant's Risk for K Sera Sera productions and another film by a Dubai-based producer. He will soon begin work for Subhash Ghai's untitled venture starring Salman Khan, Hema Malini among others. The actor agreed that he missed out on his film career earlier. ''But, I was fortunate to have a great spiritual guru. I know what I have achieved in that journey. I do not regret quitting the industry at that point of time. It is the people who feel that I was missed,'' he said.

The veteran actor who is best remembered for his performances in Mere Apne, Inkaar, Achanak, Khoon Pasina, Amar Akbar Anthony, Mera Gaon Mera Desh to name a few said he was now looking for good meaty roles and wanted to make a comeback in movies. In the last few years, he was seen in Deewanapan and Leila.

Khanna has high praise for Vishram Sawant who directed him in Risk. ''He is technically sound. I liked his approach to handling a subject. It is true that there are several films made on police-underworld relations. But, the treatment to the story needs to be different and this is exactly what Vishram has done,'' he added.

Vishram had earlier directed 'D' which starred Randeep Hooda, a film which was said to be loosely inspired by gangster Dawood Ibrahim. Risk is K Sera Sera's first independent movie after the company split with Ram Gopal Varma.

He said Vikram Bhat was working on a script for a film with him and his actor sons Akshaye and Rahul.

Speaking on his sons, Khanna says both are fine actors.

When asked whether he would work with Amitabh Bachchan again, Khanna revealed that some body was working on a script for a film having both the actors. ''I would love to work with Amitabh again.

We complemented each other well in all the movies we did earlier,'' he said.

To a question on the remake trend in the industry, Vinod Khanna said certain classics cannot be remade. ''Such trend has come because there is a dearth of good scripts. New innovative writers must be encouraged. When I was the Tourism and Culture Minister, our government had conceptualised a scheme to encourage film writers.

But our government lost and the scheme was forgotten,'' he said.

Khanna said his character of a underworld don in Risk is not an out to out negative character. 'I can only say that it has grey shades and I was impressed in the manner how the director created my character. It is something I have never done before.'' Khanna also praised his co-star Randeep Hooda who plays the policeman in the movie.

''Randeep has tremendous screen presence and good future in movies.'' The film also stars Tanushree Dutta, Seema Biswas and Makrand Deshpande.

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