As an actor, baba was open to everything around him: Babil Khan on his father-actor Irrfan Khan

Babil Khan, who has fond memories of working as an intern in the camera department on Irrfan Khan’s 2017 romantic drama ‘Qarib Qarib Singlle’, remembered how his father enjoyed waking him up early in the morning for the shoot.

Irrfan passed away on April 29 2020 after a fight with a rare form of cancer.

Babil, who has followed in his father’s footsteps by getting into movies, considers Irrfan among the greatest actors ever and right alongside two of his favourite Hollywood icons - Marlon Brando and Philip Seymour Hoffman. He considers himself lucky that he got to closely observe his father’s acting process and spontaneity first-hand on the sets of the Tanuja Chandra-directed film, which also starred Parvathy Thiruvothu.

“I was the intern for the camera department. I was running around with a lens box. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. And he (Irrfan) used to say that this was the best shooting experience he ever had. He used to say, ‘Get up, let’s go for the shooting’. It was the first time I saw him like that. It was amazing. I can’t explain… There was this lightness of being. He was enjoying himself,” Babil told PTI.

Babil, who made his acting debut with ‘Qala’ in 2022, recalled an incident when his father immediately incorporated his way of laughter for a particular joke in ‘Qarib Qarib Singlle’.

“There was a joke, ‘Do latte laana par apni nahi laana…’ But it was very difficult to execute. He came to me and said, ‘Mujhe hasi nahin aa rahi’. I asked him what the joke was and he told me. I started laughing there and he was like, ‘OK’. In that scene, he mimicked the way I had laughed at the joke. But that was the thing. As an actor, he was open to everything that was happening around,” the 26-year-old said.

According to Babil, Irrfan never had a set formula when it came to acting as he would constantly tweak his performance by observing people.

“He used to say, ‘Whatever nature is trying to give to me at that moment, I will try my best to execute it that way’. He even said in an interview, ‘Main to sab se churata hoon’. He never went with pride that ‘I know what I’m doing’.”