At the time of casting John Abraham for Dostana, the filmmaker Karan Johar told the actor, “What is attainable, is desirable. I want you to have the beachboy look, not a bodybuilder’s. People should gape when you walk out of the water.” John, who had lost 16 kilos for his role in the yet-to-be released Aashayein before that, took seven months to get into shape.
Well, the film is out and the results are there to see. People are saying, Daniel Craig coming out of the sea in Casino Royale wearing swimming trunks and little else has nothing on John doing the same in Dostana for Karan. I met the beachboy in his seashore penthouse at Bandra last week. It is like being in one of those October-to-May holiday shacks in Calangute.
Completely rustic, open kitchen, wooden floor, bean bags, bamboo wind-chimes rattling in the breeze, the sun taking its time setting in an orange-blue sea… and John, in jeans and tee, not yellow trunks! He looked chilled out. Not really, he contradicted me, but he was intending to chill out in Goa for a month. “I want to sit back and think what I need to do,” he said.
