Zayed Khan's flair for scriptwriting

By: Reshma Kelkar, IndiaFM

Monday, August 14, 2006

Zayed Khan is not just an actor; very few people know that he has a superfluous talent of writing as well. His brief break from films has motivated his writing talent. Surprisingly, he had never acknowledged his writing talent before. He admits, "I started writing when I was down with slip-disk and Rocky came to me at the same time."

When asked about his insecurity of being off from the race for some time he says, "In my whole life I have never been afraid of being afraid. In fact that puts you on your toes. Just like a soldier who prepares for war and if he is not scared then he will be a dead soldier, if he is scared then he is a living soldier and more useful. His fear is very important to keep him on his toes. That way I was never ever scared of loosing my career. In that way I am a pretty confident person."

Scripting is something that excites Zayed. In fact he even confessed that he had ghost-written some scenes in his film Rocky. He started writing when he was schooling in London. "I used to write and edit scripts when I was in London. I had scripted and edited over 250 scripts for my friends. I used to charge 3 pounds per script. So I have pretty good idea of writing and I would like to pursue it further." he adds.

Meanwhile Zayed is all kicked about his father's film production house which will be launched soon as Kingdom films. "I will be the ghost producer, writer and editor of our films. I will do our banner films but more than that I will prefer to work with other filmmakers too."

When asked if he has to remake a yesteryear film, which one would it be, Zayed is quick to reply, "It would be Abdullah for sure. It was one of my favorite films." Abdullah was produced and directed by his father Sanjay Khan in 1980 and starred the showman Raj Kapoor in title role along with Sanjay himself and Zeenat Aman. "Unfortunately I won't have Raj Kapoor saab with me who was one of the finest actors that we had", adds Zayed.

Meanwhile uncle Feroz Khan is all set to remake his yesteryear superhit Qurbani with Fardeen Khan. While Fardeen will be playing Feroz Khan's character from the original, the actor who will play Vinod Khanna's role is still not been finalized. Saif was to play the role earlier but he subsequently declined the offer. Being his uncle's film, wasn't Zayed considered for this role? "Yes, I was but I am too young to play that character."

Despite his other interests, Zayed is currently focusing more on his acting. He is presently working for Vikram Bhatt's Speed costarring Urmila Matondkar and Aftab Shivdasani, which is inspired from the Hollywood movie Cellular. He has a wish to play the Indian superhero ala brother-in-law Hrithik Roshan from Krrish. "I would like to do films that are larger than life. My forte is definitely romantic action movies because there is more scope and fun doing such movies. I don't like movies that try to prove too much. I get bored doing such movies. I don't want to prove how good an actor I am or how good a dancer I am."

He doesn't want to tag himself in any specific image. Speaking on the same he says, "Today I still don't identify myself as an action hero or romantic hero. I am going through the process where some directors make me understand my growth. I would not like to slot myself and that's the reason I am not doing the same kind of movies."

Marriage has transformed Zayed from a carefree mischievous guy to a responsible human being. He is more serious about his work now. Speaking about his wife Malaika he says, "Malaika is a critic of my films. Among all my movies she liked Main Hoon Na, Shabd and Dus. She is a Shahrukh Khan fan.

What does his father think of his acting abilities? "My father is finally smiling so there must be something right happening. Initially, he used to advice me to improve on acting. But now he is smiling. Sometimes it confuses me even more as I am not sure whether he is happy with me or wants me to improve."