It has been about a quarter of a century since. In all this time, he has directed three more movies, upgraded the lore of a nefarious Hindi film character for the current generation and turned it into a slick franchise. He has also been active in the music scene, singing, creating and performing live at packed venues.
Much like his iconic father Javed Akhtar, he is a screenwriter too. He has penned the scripts and dialogues of some of his and his sister Zoya Akhtar’s most loved films. Not just this, in all these years, he’s been producing content prolifically across platforms along with his long-time collaborator Ritesh Sidhwani, building his banner Excel Entertainment into the creative juggernaut that it is today.
But sometime while directing his third film, Don — The Chase Begins Again (2006), the acting bug bit Akhtar and he hasn’t recovered since. He made an impressive screen debut with the buddy musical Rock On!! (2008), playing a young man at odds with who is supposed to be and what he wants to be. In the last 16 years, Akhtar has acted in 14 other feature films.
On his 51st birthday today, it therefore feels opportune to celebrate some of his finest acting performances. He has been at the forefront of films such as Karthik Calling Karthik (2010), Toofaan (2021), Wazir (2016), and Shaadi Ke Side Effects (2014) but here I’m delving only into performances that pushed the needle for him as an actor, for us as audience, and redefined what he is capable of.
Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013)
He had already acted in five films by the time Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s biopic of The Flying Sikh reached him and cemented his position as a serious actor who wasn’t just dabbling with the craft out of curiosity or for fun; he meant business.
Akhtar’s portrayal of the celebrated track and field sprinter was so earnest, it forced even critics and non-believers to sit up and take notice. They couldn’t look away anymore.
I have a vivid memory of watching it at Bangalore’s PVR Orion. It was my first day in the city as a freshly-enrolled trainee journalist at a post-graduate institute located at the fringes of the metropolis. My mother had come to drop me and help me set up at the new college. All of 20, it was my first time away from home.
We went for the evening show after getting done with all the paperwork, logistics, and sundry. She was leaving the next morning. Throughout the film, she held my hand as we watched with rapt attention the story of a man fusing with the story of a country coming into its own. Throughout the film, I could hear her stifle sobs, my hand and heart moist with emotion.
Another memory. A few months later, I was at the Bangalore Literature Festival, covering the event, hoping to get a few interviews. It was the second edition and the crowd was sparse. You could attend sessions comfortably, talk to any of the dignitaries, and return home without getting mobbed. Farhan Akhtar had a session with Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. However, so immense was the frenzy around them, that the crowd brought the tent down. Forget getting a chance to talk to him, I couldn’t even see him.
Luck By Chance (2009)
Zoya Akhtar had to cast her own brother as the lead in her directorial debut after every actor of any repute famously turned down the role of Vikram Jaisingh. I’m so glad they did because Farhan’s casting in the film had a ripple reaction. It was arguably during the filming of Luck By Chance that he fell in love with acting, so irrevocably that he decided to keep it at the front and centre of his versatile, creative career.
We’d probably have never known the actor he could be had he not agreed to play the ambitious outsider desperate to make it big in the movies no matter the cost. Though it didn’t do wonders at the box office, it is one of the sharpest commentaries on the vagaries of the Hindi film industry and has deservedly found its audience over the years.
Rock On!! (2008)
Akhtar’s acting debut, the Abhishek Kapoor musical-drama is the story of four friends as they become band-members, then strangers and finally find their way back to each other years later.
Much like Dil Chahta Hai, here too, both the conflict and the resolution is rooted in friendship, yet the two films are their own distinct worlds. Apart from a terrific Farhan Akhtar as the egotistical lead of the quartet, Rock On!! also has Arjun Rampal in his career-best performance and memorable music that continues to be a playlist staple.
Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011)
Akhtar clearly has a strong affinity for buddy dramas. A delightful slice-of-life travel movie, ZNMD has him play a version of himself as Imran Qureshi. Though the film uses Arjun (Hrithik Roshan) as its anchor, of the three friends, it’s Imran and Kabir (a charming Abhay Deol) who stay with you the longest.
On the surface, Imran is playful, he does before he thinks, and couldn’t care less, but Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara gives his character enough depth and room to ground him in pathos and find redemption. The fifth-highest grossing film of that year, it continues to be one of the most enjoyable movies of the early 2010s.
The Sky Is Pink (2019)
If, like me, Dil Dhadakne Do left you wanting to see more of Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Farhan Akhtar together, Shonali Bose fulfilled that wish four years later with The Sky Is Pink. The story of Aisha Chaudhary, a pre-teen suffering from severe combined immunodeficiency and pulmonary fibrosis, it has Akhar play her father Niren Chaudhary.
Though the film focuses more on Aisha and her mother Aditi (played by a terrific Chopra Jonas), Akhtar is solid as a man trying his best to keep his daughter alive and family together.
