The Rs 100-Crore Man

Fawad Khan, Pakistan’s superstar for whom a million subcontinental hearts throb, was wearing a black shirt, had a Van Dyke-style beard-and-moustache but was sitting disturbingly far from his screen when the Zoom connection came alive.  

Without thinking, I commented on the distance I felt. He looked around for help and then moved closer to the screen to answer questions about his latest film, The Legend of Maula Jatt.  

In 1979, two years into General Zia ul-Haq’s martial law, a B-grade Punjabi film, Maula Jatt, released in Pakistan and became what Sholay is to India, and more.  

The film, directed by Yunus Malik and written by Nasir Adeeb, was about clan rivalry, honor, and revenge. It became a massive hit because of its punchy dialogue, honorable dushmani between the Gandasa-wielding Maula Jatt and his enemy Noori Natt, a villain who was like none other. Mustafa Qureshi’s Noori Natt remains, to date, a masterclass in slow-burn, masochistic villainy and almost every line he utters in the film became, and remains, a meme. 

The film’s maddening success spawned clones and a new genre of cinema, called “Gandasa culture” after the hero’s long, axe-like weapon.  

Gandasa films were low-budget, bloody action-dramas where big men in kurtas and tehmat (Punjabi-style dhoti) used sharp farming instruments, lathis and rifles to defend their moonch, women and family’s honour. But none could match the brilliance and pep of Maula Jatt. Not till last week, when writer-director Bilal Lashari’s The Legend of Maula Jatt released in theaters worldwide. 

Lashari’s film is a remake that leans on a classic but has its own identity, artistic language, and heft. The Legend of Maula Jatt is visually stunning, and its human drama is moving. It also has excellent performances, slick, seeti-maro action sequences, and is Pakistan’s most expensive film, reportedly made on a budget of 100 crore Pakistani rupees. 

Fawad Khan plays Maula Jatt, the film’s hero who is sexy, scary and has a red ribbon braided in his hair. A reluctant but die-hard romantic, his Maula has the swagger of a handsome loner who is haunted by his past, and a fighter who battles half-a-dozen men in Maut Ka Kuan and then flops down for a combo meal of meat and drinks.   

Over a 40-minute-long conversation, I realised that not enough is said about Fawad Khan’s voice. His audio is as compelling as his video. When he speaks in English, each word is nicely spaced, and the accent is clipped. And when he speaks a mix of Urdu and Punjabi, there’s mithas, warmth and grace in his voice that seems to belong to a bygone era. But Khan’s personality is a puzzle – he wears his stardom lightly, is polite and laughs easily. But there’s a seriousness that sometimes peers through his jaunty demeanor and terribly distracting good looks. It’s this unpredictable undercurrent in Khan’s personality that, writer-director Bilal Lashari says, made him cast him as Maula Jatt. And that is what makes Fawad Khan the unlikeliest but the perfect Maula Jatt. 

Edited excerpts of the interview  

Rolling Stone: I want to begin with the original film, Maula Jatt – what has your relationship been with that film, if you had a relationship with it at all? 

Fawad Khan: Um-hmm, to be very honest, I’ve had very limited exposure to Pakistani films, especially from that era… I was abroad and then I moved back to Pakistan, my exposure to Pakistani cinema was limited to the late 90s and the early 2000s.  

[But] truth be told, the title of this film is The Legend of Maula Jatt, but actually there was a legend of Maula Jatt, the myth of Maula Jatt… it achieved iconic status in the decades that followed [its release] because of the political situation in Pakistan and there were certain controversies around the film. We all knew of it, we’d heard of it, but I’d never seen it. The first time I saw the film was during preparation for this film, The Legend of Maula Jatt, more of a reboot rather than a rendition of the old classic… I saw bits and pieces of it. A very big reason for that is I’m very well aware of Sultan Rahi [who plays Maula Jatt in the original] and Mustafa Qureshi… those were very big shoes to fill.  

RS: You didn’t watch the full Maula Jatt because you wanted to do your own Maula Jatt… 

FK: That’s not the only reason. You see, I’m not a Punjabi speaker and I learnt the language for the film – diction, pronunciation, everything… And the dialogues of the film are more poetry… The old Maula Jatt was not like that. So, I [watched bits of it] to be somewhat familiar with where we’re coming from, what the old was and what we’re making now. Basic introduction was required. Jo zayada mehnat required this was that I should learn the language rather than try to emulate or channel the classic version of the film.  

RS: You’ve mostly played city-boy, romantic heroes. Gorgeous, lovely guys. So why did you say yes to this film? 

FK: Well, actually, contrary to what you just said, my first film, Khuda Ke Liye, at that time, the way things were going, was a very relevant film to the changing society, to the problems that people were facing… I mean, it was a social commentary. And after that I ventured into television, because there was a bit of a pause in Pakistani cinema… 

And most television around the world, especially in Pakistan and India, revolves around more romantic subjects. But even in that, I did try to play as many characters as I could. In one series, I attempted playing a feudal character, in one I played a complete oaf from a village… And then there were two very romantic serials [Humsafar and Zindagi Gulzar Hai] that became instant hits. And I guess that’s the problem… 

RS: I didn’t mean one-dimensional. What I meant was that this role is so different… the weight, wajan of this character, the dialogue… it’s a thing. The Legend of Maula Jatt

FK: It is a thing, sure. I mean, I’ve never done anything like this before… This is probably the most challenging thing I’ve done in my entire career, because I’m also crossing the boundary of language. But at the same time, this was a physical transformation for me, unlike any other physical transformation I’ve ever gone through earlier.  

RS: A lot has been written about your physical transformation, going from 75 kilos to 100 kgs in one-and-a-half months, and your kidneys shutting down.  

FK: Yeah.  

RS: You were doing all this apne aap, or were you under supervision? 

FK: Hahahaha, it was under supervision, but… 

RS: Did Aamir Khan just mail you his diet [from Ghajini] and say, “Isko kar-lo…” 

FK: (Smiles) Nahin, aisa kuch nahin tha. It would have been good if I had taken some advice… This physical transformation for me was a bit taxing because of a condition I’ve had since the age of 17 – I am a Type 1 diabetic. So, any kind of transformation, even when it comes to changing my diet and lifestyle, has a profound effect on my health and my physiology. And this was something else. I mean, I went from a horse to rhino in a matter of one-and-a-half months. 

RS: Wow! Yeh toh normal logon ke liye tough hai, and you thought you would wing it?

FK: I went in all guns blazing. It was aar ya paar. I didn’t think of the consequences and I guess, maybe, that’s how I’ve been most of my life. Once I get into something, I may pre-calculate it, but once I get into it, then it’s inconsequential what will happen… Call it bravery or being stupid on my part, but I think it paid off in the end, didn’t it? 

RS: Ya, your first scene itself, where we see your dole-shole…   

FK: Dole se zayada mujhe lagta hai ki ek interpretation hamari ban chuki thi of heroes being muscular and sculpted like Greek gods… This guy is just a prizefighter, a Punjabi pahalwan. And that’s how I would classify his physique. He’s brute force, a rock. He’s not a sculpture.  

RS: And then there’s a red ribbon, right?   

FK: There is one, ya [smiles]. 

RS: What is that?  

FK: When we were embellishing and crafting the look of Maula Jatt, it went from one brief to another, and in the end, we thought that we should make him look somewhat like a barbarian fakir. I thought that would be like really cool [but] adding a tassel in his hair with a red ribbon was probably one of the dumbest suggestions I could have made because during the fight scenes it would come and whack me in the face… There was like this long a piece of metal [makes a two-inch sign on his index finger] that was tied to the ribbon and to the lock of hair. It looks really cool, but it would hit me every time we would do a take. 

RS: The metal was added to give it weight? 

FK: Yes, it was an attachment to my own hair. Whenever I’d lie down, I’d experience some kind of vertigo, dizziness because the weight of it would pull on my scalp. So even when I would lie down, there would be a separate pillow for my hair. No, I’m just kidding [laughs]! It would be lying on my side [gestures, as if caressing a companion sharing his pillow] you couldn’t just let it hang… I had weight.  

RS: And this was your suggestion, the red ribbon?   

FK: I don’t know… I made some very silly suggestions. One disfigurement that I really wanted for the character, but everyone said, ‘No, no, now you’re going a bit too far,’ was that I wanted to sew one eye shut, as if he had lost an eye in one of his prizefights, somewhat inspired from Mads Mikkelsen’s Valhalla Rising… We settled for just one scar that goes down from his eyes to his cheek.  

RS: Physically this role sounds very taxing. And apparently lots of gandasas broke while shooting. Was that a thing to learn, wielding the gandasa? 

FK: Yeah, absolutely… To develop a unique fighting style, in Punjab, with a weapon like this, was a challenge… We discussed this Brazilian fighting style called Capoeira… and this Maharashtrian style of fighting in India as well, with this scimitar kind of curved swords and there’s a dance and everything… We went through all of this, and we were like, what is it that we can call our own, but at the same time it makes sense when it comes to cinema.  

And then we settled on this. So, this was a skill to acquire, to learn, and it was a grueling process. We went through six weeks of intensive training… It was a very new experience as for me, and it did take the life out of me, but I think it paid off in the end. 

RS: Living with this character – how was that? I mean, after I watched the film, for half-a-day I was going, ‘Nava aaya hai, Soneyo’… What was it like, living with Maula Jatt for more than two years? 

FK: I remember a habit that stuck with me was that I’d be done with my food in 30 seconds flat. I used to eat ravenously. Not because I was hungry, but because it had kind of become a habit… So that and the weight that I carried, I actually started walking like Maula Jatt even when I was at home.  

I don’t classify myself as a method actor, but I think every actor, maybe, does absorb certain qualities or the failings of a character as you perform it, which I didn’t think was the case. But when I saw that my own behavior, eating like an animal, I realized it was one of those things… It wasn’t a pretty sight when I ate, that’s what I’m saying. 

RS: There’s also a lot of drinking. So, I don’t know how that…  

FK: Aahahahahah. Oh, no, no. We don’t talk about such things.  

RS: Hahaha, apart from the language, there’s this shouting… you know, throwing your voice, which you and other characters have had to do in The Legend of Maula Jatt. Did that require training?  

FK: Obviously, direction is a part of that process. I mean, I could bring my interpretation of the character and I could be 100 percent wrong. And this was alien territory for me. So obviously, your director plays a big role in that, in how much is too much. Because I’m a bit sensitive about going overboard. I like to keep it subtle.  

RS: Ya, I get that.  

FK: But this movie is… If you’re dancing the waltz, then this is like a tango. This is completely on the wild side… There are some places where we have played to the gallery, [but to] find that fine line, where you are not completely forgetting everything you’ve learned over the years, to find a balance, in that direction is one thing but my foe, my arch-nemesis Noori Natt [played by Hamza Ali Abbasi] was another big factor. 
I’m absolutely floored by his performance… So, the amount of loudness, because it’s a couples’ dance, with the hero and his nemesis, a lot came from there as well. 

RS: Any scene that was particularly tough, you had to like rehearse a lot for, or were they all same to… 

FK: The action scenes were probably the ones we had to do again and again. But the rest of it, I don’t think we went beyond the four-five take mark… But please don’t think I’m trying to score points here, ki main koi jhande gaadh raha hoon by saying ki main bahut easily, ek chutki main (clicks his fingers) scene nikal deta hoon…  

RS: Hahaha. So have you kept a gandasa? 

FK: No, I’ve not been given the gandasa. I think that is the director’s well-deserved trophy. Agar mujhe koi replica inke paas ho aur woh mil gaya toh phir theek hai, nahin mila toh khair hai.   

RS: The original Maula Jatt impacted Pakistani cinema and culture in such a deep way… What do you think this return, reboot will do, which is a bigger film…    

FK: I don’t know… I just feel that this is the most ambitious film made in recent Pakistani film history, or if I’m not being conservative, I would say in the entire Pakistani film history because of the sheer scale of it… 

Maula Jatt ignited a gandasa culture, for better or for worse, after which Punjabi films were coming out one after the other. With The Legend of Maula Jatt, it’s a bit different because I feel this film takes from that culture, but it presents a new identity, a diverse identity of Pakistani mainstream cinema.  

RS: Do you think this film is going to create an identity for Pakistani cinema internationally? I mean, there are regions which are familiar with Pakistani films, like India, Bangladesh, maybe the Middle East, but internationally… Do you think this will be the Squid Game or… I’m giving a bad example, but you know what I mean. 

FK: The Legend of Maula Jatt is definitely going to plant flags in regions where Pakistani films have not been seen, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say that this is the identity of Pakistani cinema because that is not the case. What it does do is, it presents a diverse film industry, where you can have mainstream films that have song and dance, a very high-budget film in a regional language which can be considered a mainstream film… 

In this era of Pakistani films, especially in a socially and digitally aware age, where you have easy access to content, the Pakistani film industry does have an introduction. But I feel Maula Jatt adds to Pakistani cinema’s diversity and I think it will encourage filmmakers to be brave, to make something that is not in line with your conventional mainstream films of today… that are just paisa vasool… Which is not a bad thing. I’m saying this film widens the portfolio. 

RS: What is ambitious about Maula Jatt? The fact that it’s in Punjabi, the budget, the scale, the attention to detail, all of this? 

FK: For one, we kind of break the stereotype of what a hero and a villain should look like, at least, right now in this industry.  

RS: Ya. Some of the villains are very sexy. There is a very nice, campy thing happening with some of them. 

FK: Hahahaha. The film is ambitious in every sense of the word because there’s a sad reality of Pakistani cinema… We’ve got a limited number of screens [160 screens in about 60 cinema halls], and therefore that limits the budget you can invest into a film. Our budgets as compared to Hollywood or Bollywood or any other film industry are very limited… We try to do what we can on a shoestring budget compared to what others do… If anyone, if the Indian film industry were in such a situation, it would do the same and we would call that ‘indie,’ independent cinema. But here in Pakistan, we do compete with a lot of industries around the world and we want to hold our audience… So, when a film like Maula Jatt comes along, that’s a very big gamble.   

RS: So locally, you think this will change the game? 

FK: The game has changed already locally, aisi baat nahin hai. You have socially relevant films being made, you have your mainstream masala-tadka film being made, at the same time you have a film like Joyland, then you have Maula Jatt. So, there is diversity. I just feel that this adds another flavor of diversity… If it rakes in the money that we want it to, it will definitely change the perception of the investor, he will feel that he can go all in. 

RS: How much money are you hoping it makes? 

FK: Meri taraf se toh I hope it makes 2,000 crores, 3,000 crores [laughs].  

RS: Insha Allah! Aur hum log, bechare, India mein kab dekhenge, The Legend of Maula Jatt?   

FK: I don’t know whether there will ever be another exchange of… Abhi toh, filhaal, aisa lagta hai ki online exchange hoga, or abroad, in places where both communities live and meet, which is unfortunate.