Had you expected Dhoom to be such a blockbuster?

We actors expect all our films to be blockbusters because we put in great effort into them. We hoped for the best because we all had worked very hard. We knew we had something normal and unique and simple so we worked towards making the best possible film that we could. Thankfully the audiences appreciated our efforts.

Dhoom:2 will be your first sequel, did you have to reprise your mannerisms and attitude from the first role?

(Jokingly) Actually my first sequel was Lage Raho Munnabhai, in which I played a very prominent role. I was the main guy in the film. So Dhoom:2 is my second sequel.

Since it’s a sequel, it was easier because I knew the character, what he can do and cannot do. But in the sequel we tweaked Jai Dixit (Abhishek’s character). In Dhoom:2, I feel Jai Dixit is slightly more relaxed and that reflects in the way he dresses and in his general attitude. I’d like to believe he’s a cooler, calmer; more level headed and has things more planned out in the film.

So the plus point of doing a sequel is that you get to tweak the character instead of just developing it and establishing it.

Now we know your character in the film has a tweak. But how different or similar is the film Dhoom:2 from Dhoom?

Dhoom:2 is the same genre but I believe it’s a different film. It’s a bigger and better film. But what I really like about Dhoom:2 is that, it’s not about fast bikes and thieves, it’s more than that.

I remember questioning Aditya and Sanjay that shouldn’t Dhoom:2 have more of what the original had. To this Aditya said that the audience will get bored if you give them the same thing again. If you do the same thing in Dhoom:2 as you did in Dhoom they will say okay, what new are you serving this time?

So I liked the fact that they went beyond the script of just Dhoom.

Now you have Hrithik and Aishwarya as your adversaries so what do they bring to the Dhoom board?

They bring a whole different dimension. They will bring a lot more viewers. We would like to believe that Uday and I have been selfish in Dhoom:2. We have hired bigger stars so that more people come to watch the movie.

Did you face competition from Hrithik while shooting the film?

No not at all. I’ve never been a person who believes in competition. Hrithik is more of an inspiration for me. He makes me work harder, he makes me a better actor, and he makes me want to do my best, so he’s more inspiration than competition.

In Bunty Aur Babli and Bluffmaster you play a con man and in Dhoom:2 you play a contrasting role of a cop. Which is tougher?

Everything is challenging, the endeavour is to do challenging work and to push yourself to do work that you have not done in the past. If it’s not challenging, it’s not going to be fun, and you are not going to enjoy what you are doing. If you are not enjoying what you are doing, then you are going to be dishonest to your profession, which is sacrilege for us.

The challenge in Dhoom:2 was to make Jai Dixit much more interesting than he was in Dhoom. He is the same character and I am repeating myself here, but that is where the challenge lay. Having kept the same foundation, how do you make Jai more interesting to retain the audience’s attention on him?

How did you like the music of Dhoom:2 as compared to Dhoom?

(Jokingly) I think the music of Dhoom:2 is weaker than Dhoom because I have one song picturised on me in this film and in another song I am just standing by the bar. In Dhoom I had three songs. I think it’s very unfair. I am convinced that I could have out danced Aishwarya and Hrithik Roshan, Bipasha and Uday… but what can I do?

It’s nice music.

Considering that Dhoom:2 is an action film and you play a cop in it, you would have done a lot of action scenes. So did you do your stunts or did you use duplicates?

We did a lot of the stunts. But because Dhoom:2 is an action film, a lot of safety precautions were taken. Amin, our stunt co-coordinator, is very meticulous when it comes to safety. 

There are a lot of stunts that every actor is very willing to do and very keen to do but Amin didn’t allow us because he thought we didn’t really need to do it. He believes his actors don’t need to do each and every stunt.

Specialized people were called for stunts like jet skiing, motorcycle riding stunts, which we were not qualified to do. But we try and do as many stunts as we are allowed to do.

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