Irrfan Khan and his self-aware humour that had him pull off films like Thank You, The Killer: ‘Just have fun’

Irrfan Khan’s career is remembered for his many stellar performances in films like Paan Singh Tomar, The Namesake, Life of Pi, among many more but ardent Hindi film viewers will definitely remember that while Irrfan could pull off some critically acclaimed roles, he also had a parallel track in his career – the one where he made some strange choices but was completely self-aware about it. In Thank You, Aan: Men At Work, and a few more, Irrfan was the best part of an otherwise mediocre film but it was extremely obvious that the actor was in on the joke. Irrfan’s presence in these films was in fact a reminder for the audience that you are not supposed to take it seriously, because even he wasn’t doing so.
Anees Bazmee’s Thank You had Irrfan playing a cheating husband. The plot of the film was completely idiotic and Irrfan was well aware that he wasn’t making cinematic hory here. While talking about how he works on such characters, he told Film Companion in 2017, “Don’t research on the character, don’t find its background and see its behaviour. Don’t bring in all these shades, don’t work too much over it. Just flow with the flow. Have a good time when you are doing Anees Bazmee’s movie. You have related to that humour. You have enjoyed that so go on the sets and have fun.”
Suniel Shetty, Bob Deol with Irrfan Khan in Thank You.
Thank You was classified as a comedy but you wonder how Irrfan landed in Sanjay Gupta’s green-tinted world in Jazbaa. Irrfan was spouting dialogues like ‘Rishto pe bharosa aur mobile pe network naa ho toh log game khelne lagte hain”. In one of his interviews, he describe it as “attitude vali acting.” Jazbaa was over the top, had Aishwarya Rai yelling her lungs out and Irrfan just casually said his dramatic dialogues as if it was just another day at the office for him. “When I am doing a film with one-liners, I have to give those one-liners and enjoy it. You shouldn’t be skeptical about it. Just have fun,” he said in the same conversation with FC.
This persona of the actor was quite evident in the few AIB sketches that he performed in those days. His Bollywood party song video with the comedy group was a dig at all the club songs Hindi films were doing in those days, and Irrfan was not above taking a few digs at himself while he was at it.

Irrfan was truly a master at balancing his art, with something that shouldn’t be taken as seriously because how else would you explain that the year he appeared in The Namesake was the same year that he did a film called The Killer with Emraan Hashmi. In The Killer, Irfan played a psychopath who is on a murder spree and while nothing about this film was remotely good, Irrfan seemed like he knew why he was there – to have fun. He could just deliver the lines with a straight face, not try too hard and the audience would know that Irrfan was there just to trick the audience.

Irrfan’s big introduction to the West was Slumdog Millionaire, and in many ways, that is true. While he had appeared in a few significant films that point, Slumdog opened a lot of doors for him. Doors that could lead him to pick the best of roles, but Irrfan still chose to have fun while working in Hindi movies. I suppose the closest equivalent of this would be us choosing to watch something trash, so we can love to hate it. Irrfan, though, never hated it. He wasn’t intellectualising his roles when he picked films like Knock Out and Acid Factory.
On his death anniversary, his fans are sure to remember some of his celebrated films but let’s not forget that Irrfan was probably one of the coolest actors of his time who did not look down upon any kind of cinema, and had fun doing whatever he picked.