Not directing Irrfan Khan was one of my biggest regrets: Karan Johar

"Irrfan: A Life in Movies" hit the stands today. Written by long-time film critic Shubhra Gupta, the book shares the thoughts and feelings of members of the film fraternity about the late Irrfan Khan.  

The book gives a compelling account of Irrfan's life and achievements, from his days at the National School of Drama to his nearly decade-long stint in television, before gradually shifting to his rise in the film industry.

One account from the book tells the story of why Karan Johar never directed the legendary star.

In the interview, Johar admitted that he did not want to be the filmmaker responsible for giving someone of Irrfan Khan's calibre a "substandard mainstream film".

"He (Irrfan) was way stronger than anything I could have ever offered him. I never arrived at a screenplay, a film, a thought or an idea that would warrant the presence of the magnitude that Irrfan Khan brought to the table. That's the reason I never had a film with Irrfan because I did not want to be that filmmaker who gave him a substandard mainstream film. I didn't want to be the blotch in his otherwise beauteous career graph," said Johar, as quoted in the book.

Johar would go on to remark how he had been stunned by Irrfan's performance in "Maqbool".

"Because no other actor, I think, has a combination of the various characteristics that Irrfan brought to the table: charisma, cinema intellect, presence, performance, all in equal measure. You can slot many other actors into boxes. You can't generalise Irrfan Khan, you can't put him into a box. It's simply because he was so unique and individualistic," Johar added.

The filmmaker, known for blockbuster hits like "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai", "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham" and "My Name Is Khan", just to name a few, shared that he did not have the ability to look beyond big stars and spectacle movies at the start of his career.

"So, while Irrfan Khan had this trajectory that began properly in 1998, and he had all those movies that were breaking through, I was busy making these big spectacle entertainers; I didn't have the bandwidth or understanding of how to accommodate the magic and magnitude of Irrfan," he explained.

Johar would go on to remark that ironically, after Irrfan's death, at least "five scripts" landed on his table, that he believed would have been perfect for the "Hindi Medium" star.

"At least five scripts landed on my table after he passed away that were screaming Irrfan Khan. I just feel terrible. And you know why those scripts came to my table now? Because now is the time that cinema is ready for that material and that material was all Irrfan Khan," he explained.

Johar admitted that he believes that not directing Irrfan was one of the biggest regrets of his life.

Recalling how he and his friend, fellow director Zoya Akhtar, agreed that there was "no other actor like Irrfan Khan", Johar spoke about the late actor's rarely talked about "sex appeal".

"It's very important to say that women found him sexy; he had tremendous sex appeal. You know, always, it's the actors who do the more cerebral, the more intellectual, the more critic-friendly cinema that you don't associate with sex appeal. Somehow, I think Irrfan Khan was very sexy, and it was a huge icing on his terrific talent cake," he said.