Hit films may have eluded him this year, but 2010 is still proving to be a great year for him as Sanjay Dutt has been blessed with many great things. His wife Manyata is expecting twins, and all those extra pounds he gained over the years too have been shed. And he has got lots of movies to look forward too as well. Life couldn’t be better for the 51-year-old actor who is looking forward to, “Healthy children.” He doesn’t have any gender preferences.
Sanjay says he is a changed man now and claims to have finally grown up. “I am fifty one years old. I have stopped thinking like Sanju Baba. I have turned into Sanjay Dutt, the man whose responsibilities have doubled. My daughter Trishala is all grown up and is in New York leading her own independent life, but I love kids and am looking forward to becoming a father once again. I am also very attached to my sisters’ kids,” he reveals.
Apart from the arrival of the twins, Sanjay is also looking forward to the release of his upcoming film Knock Out which he says has been the most difficult movie of his career. “It was a tough film for me to do as I was holed up in a room all alone for days together. I also had to react to Irrfan Khan’s dialogues though he was not physically in front of me. I just had to imagine what was happening outside. As actors we are used to action and reaction and I was missing the reaction here,” he says.
Along with trying to read Irrfan’s mind, Sanjay had to cope with tough action sequences. “The fights were raw, more like fighting just with your fists and I hadn’t done this since Kidnap.” These fights seem to be the film’s highlight as a lot of foreign technicians who had worked on films like Bourne Identity were hired.
Though these fights were quite exhausting, Sanjay says he is now looking forward to more of action-oriented movies. “I am done with mushy love stories and the lover boy image. I don’t mind doing a serious love story like Parineeta or Saajan once in a way, but I can’t do love stories any more. I rather play a character and enthrall my fans. This gives me the utmost satisfaction,” he says.
Sanjay feels a hit career lies in doing lots of action and comedy films. “Look at Dabangg, it has done amazing business. When I saw the film I told Salman, ‘You have gone back to where I had started’. A popular South director once told me that southern actors are hero worshipped because they haven’t forgotten the significance of action and comic flicks. Comedy is an evergreen genre and will always do well. But at the same time it is not easy to make everybody laugh.”
Along with trying to ferret out hit scripts, Sanjay is also concentrating on fulfilling his father’s long cherished dream. He plans to now concentrate on his production house Sanjay Dutt Productions. “I am looking into a lot of scripts and my wife is helping me with it. It was my father’s dream. After he shut his production house Ajanta Arts, he wanted me to start my own production house. I launched the production house last year, but unfortunately our industry was hit by recession. So now I am seriously thinking of taking it forward.”
What about his political future? “I am done with it. I have no interest now.” Looks like movies are the only things he wants to be associated with. “Yes, God has been extremely kind to me. I am going through a great period. My family, which includes my wife and sisters love me and I am doing great films like Power and Rascals. What more could I ask for?”