Sikander Kher, without inhibition, accepts that the movies he has done so far have not fared well and that’s why he picks up scripts which interest him. He tells S Mallik that how, for his role in Tere Bin laden: Dead or Alive, he had to shave off his head
Sikander Kher is unlike other star kids in the industry. He is fun, witty and has an amazing sense of humour (and does now the baggage of belonging to a family of actors) — few reasons why director Abhishek Sharma thought he would fit into the shoes of an American CIA agent in his movieTere Bin laden: Dead or Alive.
We met Kher, and the entire team of the movie, during their promotional tour in the Capital and realised that the character of David has rubbed off on him. There was not a moment when he was not doing something or the other. As Sharma addressed the media, Kher played around with his fellow stars — clicking Pradhuman’s picture when he was drinking water, making a video of the audience, playing knots and crosses with Manish Paul and Pradhuman Singh and even winking for the shutterbugs.
If you have seen the trailer you would know what we are talking about. The transformation from an American CIA agent to the Punjabi David Chadhdha is something to look out for. “It is a funny character, if you think about it,” he said. “In the beginning of the movie he is this white American CIA agent who works for Barack Obama and is after Osama Bin laden. So when there were reports of him being killed and being buried in sea, people began to ask for proof. He then finds out a lookalike of Osama in India and decides to stage a fake death of that person,” added the actor.
Blending into the skin of the character was easy for Kher but he did oppose to Sharma’s idea of shaving his hair off. “There was no way on Earth I was going to do that,” Kher narrated. “I said no and went back home, where I lay thinking about it. Even then I was not convinced. I was alright with using prosthetics but to shave my hair off was a tad too much. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that I had no movie in hand where I had continuation. It just took me a split second to decide and I went to the washroom, picked up the razor and was done with it,” he said, not forgetting to mention that that he has recorded the act and showed it to anybody who did not believe him.
When we asked him about his English and Punjabi accent in the movie he chose to act it out. “There is a knob on the side of my throat. When you turn it, my language changes aur main Punjabi bolne lagta hoon,” he said, turning an imaginary knob on his throat. “It is not gruesome though,” he laughed.
Kher’s last movie was Players which released in 2013, and he did not shy away from accepting that it did not do well at the Box Office. Explaining his long absence from the silver screen, he unabashedly said, “The few films that I did, did not do very well. I thought that the script was very good but somehow things did not work out. After that I decided to only pick up projects that I found entertaining and interesting.”
One would expect that being the son of veteran actors Anupam Kher and Kirron Kher, he would be burdened with expectations of better performance. But the actor does not let that thought bother him. He believes that the more one thinks about this, the more he or she is distracted. “Because it draws you away from your focus, which is your performance. I consider my parents as the finest actors that the industry has today and yes, people will compare. But if I start to think about that I will not be able to perform and deliver my best,” he explained.