Vrooming on the success of Dhoom

Still on a high with the fabulous success of Dhoom, John Abraham is ready to take on the world again. His first release this year will be the Vikram Bhatt’s multi-starrer Elaan, in which he will be seen along with Mithun Chakraborty, Rahul Khanna and Arjun Rampal.
“I was ready to work with the Bhatt camp. In fact, Mahesh Bhatt is the best director I have known so far. I would be glad to work with him again,” he said.
John studied at Bombay Scottish School, along with the likes of Abhishek Bachchan, “and Hrithik Roshan and Uday Chopra who were my classmates from kindergarten.”
“School life was amazing and I don’t recall having a really bad day there.” Though he grew up with students whose families were into Bollywood, he never thought of becoming an actor. “I wanted to be a footballer. I even played for Mumbai in the national soccer events. I used to be a great athlete.”
Things changed after he completed his graduation from Jai Hind College and proceeded for a Master’s degree in Business Administration. “One day, I was in office working for a shoot but the model did not turn up, so I ended up modelling for the product. My director saw the advertisement and suggested I try my luck at the Gladrags Megamodel Hunt. I won that event.” And from there, there was no looking back.
John has been very busy with his projects. Besides his role as an ex-convict in Elaan who will do anything for his lady love Sonia, played by Lara Dutta, he has just completed shooting for Deepa Mehta’s controversial film, Water, starring Lisa Ray. Also in the pipeline for releases are Karan Johar’s Kaal with Shah Rukh Khan, Viruddh with Amitabh Bachchan (where he plays Big B’s son), an out-and-out comedy by Priyadarshan starring Akhshaye Kumar and Paresh Rawal and also a thriller by Ramesh Sippy starring Nana Patekar.
This list could be flattering for many but John is far from satisfied. “I want to do more and more films, better films.”
Given a chance he would love to do a Sylvester Stallone in Rocky but would like to have Nicole Kidman star opposite her. Among men in Hollywood, he is in total awe of Robert Di Niro.
He is not averse to the media glare on him. “I think it is a part of being a celebrity. The media has been very responsible till now. I think the media’s glare should be taken graciously by the celebrities even if it means taking it with a pinch of salt.”

Published in Hindustan Times Next on January 11, 2005