Playing the ‘Kaptaan’

Annam Lod­hi

An exclu­sive inter­view with Abdul Man­nan Butt who played Imran Khan in the upcom­ing movie ‘Kap­taan’

Releas­ing this May is direc­tor Faisal Aman Khan’s ‘Kap­taan’ – a film based on the life of crick­eter-turned-politi­cian Imran Khan after retir­ing from the world of crick­et, enter­ing pol­i­tics and all the events that occurred in his life up to 2010. News of the film first broke in 2011, when the teas­er track ‘Allah Hoo’ was released. Since then the movie has faced some delays but is now con­sid­ered one of the most await­ed films of 2013, despite a notable lack of wide­spread pub­lic­i­ty.

The lead actor Abdul Man­nan Butt is adding to his reper­toire of mod­el­ling and pho­tog­ra­phy by debut­ing as an actor in this film. A rapid­ly ris­ing star (who actu­al­ly bears an uncan­ny resem­blance to Imran Khan and Hrithik Roshan), Man­nan is a true Lahori and an amaz­ing host. As I sat down to inter­view him, I must admit to being ini­tial­ly star-struck, but as we con­tin­ued to talk the 32-year-old pro­ceed­ed to make me feel com­fort­able and wel­comed. And here is what he had to say:

Laal­tain: So how did you get to where you are today?

Man­nan:  Now that is some sto­ry – at least for me. I used to go to Anarkali reg­u­lar­ly to learn typ­ing, and in 1998 as I was pass­ing by the place one day I was spot­ted by Khaw­er Riaz. Despite my repeat­ed warn­ings to him that I knew noth­ing about mod­el­ling, he insist­ed that I come to his office. I fig­ured I had noth­ing to lose so I end­ed up going. Hav­ing no back­ground in mod­el­ling and the indus­try not being as pop­u­lar back in the day, I had no clue as to who I was meet­ing. He was nice enough to intro­duce me to his fam­i­ly, after which he showed me some port­fo­lios of top mod­els. That’s when it sunk in who he actu­al­ly was. Back then I knew it was a risky deci­sion to enter this field, but I was curi­ous so even­tu­al­ly agreed to try it out. I got my port­fo­lio made and he for­ward­ed it to oth­er agen­cies. I still remem­ber how hap­py my fam­i­ly was when they saw my com­mer­cial for the first time. [smiles]

Laal­tain: So did you just car­ry on after your first com­mer­cial?

Man­nan: Actu­al­ly I kind of lost inter­est after that first com­mer­cial as I felt my curios­i­ty had been sat­ed. I received a hand­ful of calls with offers for more work but I didn’t accept any of them, usu­al­ly mak­ing up one excuse or anoth­er. As I said, I wasn’t as curi­ous any­more, and it was just a hob­by for me. My main goal was actu­al­ly to become a busi­ness­man.

Laal­tain: Then what brought you back?

Man­nan: As clichéd as it may sound, it was when my inter­est was sparked once again. In 2000 I was select­ed for a fash­ion show. There were 70 of us, and I, for what­ev­er rea­son, was in the top 7. I expe­ri­enced a new high with that show, so in 2005 I joined the indus­try on a pro­fes­sion­al lev­el. That is when it all real­ly began for me. It wasn’t smooth or easy, but I was in it for the long-haul this time.

Laal­tain: Was the way to ‘Kap­taan’ easy?

Man­nan: Well, around two years ago one of the agen­cies rec­om­mend­ed that I approach Faisal Aman Khan, as he had appar­ent­ly been try­ing to con­tact me. So I called him up and was asked to meet imme­di­ate­ly. I went through the nor­mal rou­tine of screen tests and audi­tions, then they signed up Saee­da Imti­az [who plays Jemi­ma Khan in the film] and the work began in Pak­istan.

Laal­tain: You even look like Imran Khan!

Man­nan: [Laughs] Yes, I have been told a few times. I think that is one of the main rea­sons I land­ed this role. But thank you, I can’t help but feel flat­tered every time some­one says that.

Laal­tain: How did the idea for ‘Kap­taan’ come about?

Man­nan: Faisal, our direc­tor and pro­duc­er, got his degree in film­mak­ing from the UK. He had the idea two years after he grad­u­at­ed, so he start­ed the project inde­pen­dent­ly, even writ­ing the sto­ry on his own. He then met and inter­viewed Imran Khan in the UK regard­ing the project. Even my selec­tion was done there.

Laal­tain: Has this project received a lot of sup­port from the PTI?

Man­nan: Finan­cial­ly, no. But that is not the only sup­port one needs. PTI was very help­ful in every oth­er aspect of the project. This being a bio­graph­i­cal film, Imran Khan pro­vid­ed us with his life’s details when need­ed. As for PTI itself, they helped us shoot in places where, for many polit­i­cal rea­sons, a shoot would not real­ly be pos­si­ble.

Laal­tain: Then where did the mon­ey come from?

Man­nan: Faisal has financed the project him­self. The bud­get is pret­ty mod­est; there is no sign of extrav­a­gance in the film. An inde­pen­dent project usu­al­ly doesn’t get much finan­cial help, so we tried to make do with the funds we had. This meant not being able to build sets from scratch, but as I said before, with PTI and Imran Khan’s help we were able to shoot in a lot of orig­i­nal loca­tions, and that obvi­ous­ly helped a great deal.

Laal­tain: Was there any­thing in par­tic­u­lar that drew you to this project?

Man­nan: Apart from an obvi­ous appre­ci­a­tion for Imran Khan him­self, it would def­i­nite­ly have to be my own expe­ri­ences as well.  Like him, I lost one of my par­ents, my father, to blood can­cer. It made me very hos­tile and I just want­ed to do some­thing to fight the dis­ease. Nat­u­ral­ly, think­ing and doing are not the same thing. While I was only able to think about it, Imran Khan actu­al­ly made things hap­pen. Maybe I couldn’t do what he did, but the least I can do is relay his sto­ry to the world. Apart from this, it is any actor’s dream to work with a direc­tor who is not afraid of tak­ing risks, and Faisal is exact­ly that type of guy. He doesn’t use the clichéd styles of direct­ing we often see in Pak­istan and I appre­ci­ate his meth­ods.

Laal­tain: Would it be an under­state­ment to say that por­tray­ing the role was hard?

Man­nan: Oh most def­i­nite­ly! The kind of pres­sure involved in try­ing to depict some­one like Imran Khan, who is clear­ly con­sid­ered a liv­ing leg­end, is – to put it light­ly – a back­break­er. In a more visu­al way, grow­ing my hair was one of the hard­est parts. I have always had short hair, and it took me a good while to get it that long. Apart from that, copy­ing his voice, man­ner­isms and body lan­guage was hard. But I went through his videos on YouTube and learned what I could. Anoth­er dif­fi­cul­ty was copy­ing his bowl­ing style. I had to prac­tice a lot to get it right.

Laal­tain: And what about shoot­ing prob­lems?

Man­nan: Shoot­ing in PTI-relat­ed areas was fair­ly easy, thanks to their sup­port. The real issue came in respect to oth­er polit­i­cal par­ties like PML(N) and MQM. When we tried to shoot in loca­tions relat­ed to these par­ties we were reg­u­lar­ly denied access or NOCs. So that was unde­ni­ably one of the issues. Over­all, peo­ple refused co-oper­ate because they belonged to oth­er par­ties, or were in gen­er­al against Imran Khan.

Laal­tain: So tell us more about the movie itself.

Man­nan: Well, it’s based on Imran Khan’s life. It focus­es on all the highs and lows he expe­ri­enced, start­ing from his crick­et days but main­ly focus­ing on events from his retire­ment up till 2010. The rest you will have to watch!

Laal­tain: Does the name Kap­taan have to do with any­thing more than cap­tain­cy as a crick­et play­er?

Man­nan: A cap­tain is some­one who leads or com­mands. He has done it through­out his life. First with crick­et, then can­cer, then edu­ca­tion and final­ly pol­i­tics. Cap­tain­cy is his sym­bol, no mat­ter what the con­text.

Laal­tain: Would you mind telling us about the threats you received after the movie was announced?

Man­nan: Oh sev­er­al threats were received by both Saee­da [por­tray­ing the role of Jemi­ma Khan] and myself. Hav­ing spent my whole life in Pak­istan I have become immune to such things. How­ev­er, Saee­da is a US cit­i­zen and for her it was a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. After ini­tial­ly ignor­ing the issue, we final­ly had to com­plain to the police. Even­tu­al­ly the per­son respon­si­ble was found; his main objec­tion was about how mak­ing this movie is haraam and against Islam. But he was just an indi­vid­ual act­ing alone, and we lat­er also dis­cov­ered that he was men­tal­ly ill.

Laal­tain: Speak­ing of Saee­da Imti­az, how was your expe­ri­ence with your first co-star?

Man­nan: It was great. We devel­oped an instant con­nec­tion. She is a very hum­ble per­son and adjusts well to her sur­round­ings. I have worked with oth­er women as co-actors and anchors, but I found work­ing with Saee­da was excep­tion­al­ly easy.

Laal­tain: The movie’s release has been delayed already. Why?

Man­nan: Mon­ey and pol­i­tics. Our bud­get and var­i­ous polit­i­cal rea­sons have been the main prob­lem.

Laal­tain: When can we expect a release?

Man­nan: Insha Allah by the end of April.

Laal­tain: Let’s talk about the pol­i­tics now. Do you think PTI will ful­fil its promis­es if it comes to pow­er?

Man­nan: We talked about this before. Imran Khan is a leader. He does what he says. He made it his mis­sion to win the World Cup, and it hap­pened. With the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, the change will come slow­ly but sure­ly. Dur­ing the course of his life, he has been shunned an ample amount of times. But he proved them all wrong. He pushed it all aside and did what he want­ed to do. And to this day noth­ing has changed. He is still told off, and just as he has done before he will come out of the pres­sure and prove every­one wrong again. That is if he is giv­en the chance.

Laal­tain: You are free to stop or decline to answer if this one feels too polit­i­cal. But Imran Khan has been crit­i­cized for hav­ing cor­rupt mem­bers in PTI now. What is your take on this?

Man­nan: Going back to Imran Khan’s one impor­tant skill: cap­tain­cy. He has to give every­one an equal chance and then weigh each one’s strengths and weak­ness­es. It is then his job to see who he wants to play and when. I think Imran is a cap­tain in its truest sense, and knows exact­ly what he is doing. We need to keep in mind, though human, he is a leader. And his job is to think what every­day minds can’t.

Laal­tain: Com­ing back to you, you have ven­tured into so many fields. What do you think the future holds now?

Man­nan: I want to con­tin­ue work­ing on many projects, although I have learned to be selec­tive with the pas­sage of time.

I’m open to direct­ing as well. Our coun­try excels in music and fash­ion, but lacks in film­mak­ing. It needs bet­ter direc­tors and writ­ers who do not play the old horse back­ground music [laughs]. I would also like to pro­mote film­mak­ing amongst the youth so that more of them can study it and enter the field. Pho­tog­ra­phy is also a great pas­sion with me. I still do wed­ding pho­tog­ra­phy.

Hope­ful­ly one day I will also ful­fill my dream of start­ing a busi­ness.

Laal­tain: Cloth­ing line busi­ness maybe?

Man­nan: Oh no, not at all. There are too many of those already. Maybe a men’s per­fume line, man­u­fac­tured sole­ly in Pak­istan. I think this coun­try holds a lot of poten­tial; peo­ple just need to go out there and explore it. On an unre­lat­ed note, I think there is also a lot of tal­ent in Pak­istan. Our whole crew was Pak­istani. It was tru­ly heart­en­ing to see.

Laal­tain: And final­ly, any mes­sage for the youth?

Man­nan: It may sound stereo­typ­i­cal, but do not stop study­ing. I have seen all these young peo­ple being charmed by the indus­try, but not every­one suc­ceeds and not every­one is appre­ci­at­ed. I am not try­ing to demean any­body here. The basic truth is that some peo­ple have monop­o­lised the field, and they don’t let new­com­ers in that eas­i­ly or at all. It is a good indus­try, but it’s impor­tant not to let it cloud your oth­er tal­ents and ideas. There is a lot to learn and I sug­gest you keep explor­ing your­self, what you are good at or great at. If you find your­self a god­fa­ther, lucky you! Oth­er­wise, become your own god­fa­ther. Know what peo­ple expect from you, what you can give and how you can do it.

Laal­tain: Oh, and to break many hearts when are you set to tie the knot?

Man­nan: [laughs shy­ly] well I am not engaged, I am wait­ing to get mar­ried. But it will hap­pen soon Insha Allah.

Laal­tain: Will it be love or arranged?

Man­nan: It will be my mother’s choice, but of course it goes both ways. [smiles]