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PROFILE: SUNNY DEOL
Life On His Own Terms
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IN
HIS ARMS: Dimple with the angry young Deol in a still from Narsimha
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Deol is making hay
while Gadar shines. Slammed by critics through the 1980s, his first
national award for Ghayal was much-needed manna. The next one came
for Best Supporting Actor, as the drunken lawyer in Damini. The
awards came even as he struggled with two back surgeries. Darr,
Ghaatak, Border and Ziddi have been hits. Though the box-office
has remained lukewarm through much of the late-1990s, his distributors
have for long considered him a solid star on whose films they are likely
to recover costs even if they are not hits. Analyst Maithili Rao believes
Dillagi showed Deol has a largely unexplored flair for comedy-just
like his father, though not with as much breadth. But when it's dancing,
both are famous for their two left feet.
His uncle, director Guddu Dhanoa, says the famed
Deol lack of dancing talent doesn't matter. Punjab proudly claims him
as its own. The crowds don't seem to have noticed that his heroine Amisha
Patel looks young enough to be his child in Gadar. When thousands
turned up to watch him during Gadar's location shoots at Amritsar,
Pathankot and Ferozepur, director Anil Sharma says, "They never said
Sunny was coming. It was always sadda Sunny (our Sunny) or mera pra."
The 5 ft 10.5 inches tall hero sports biceps that can swell to 18 inches
after a workout. He's a health freak who does not drink or smoke, never
travels without his personal trainer and rarely misses the daily workout.
Yet he doesn't sport the sculpted Salman Khan look. For him it's the more
hirsute akhara body complete with bulging midriff. He's not ashamed of
the belly, but has one clear rule: no photographs on a day when he has
not worked out.
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MUSCLE
POWER: Stunt double
Yakoob Khan |
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But despite the public adulation, Deol the man
is as much an enigma as Deol the box-office draw. Schoolmate Karim Morani,
who also produced Damini and Arjun, speaks of a shy, emotional
child who stayed away from school drama competitions. Amisha is all gush,
"Kaho Na ... Pyaar Hai wasn't released when I began shooting
for Gadar, yet he never made me feel like a newcomer." Brother
Bobby is in complete awe of his "guardian angel". Shooting in
Scotland for Barsaat in 1995, Bobby broke his leg after an equestrian
accident. Big brother immediately chartered a private jet to fly him down
to London and cancelled his own shoots to look after his injured sibling.
Deol's stunt duplicate Yakoob Khan has one refrain, "Sunnysaab
achche hain," but has to admit that Sunnysaab did not visit him
after he was badly burnt in a room on fire during the shooting of Himmat.
There are huge areas of silence in his life.
Wife Pooja,whom he met in the UK while studying to be an actor, is one
of many subjects that Deol will not discuss. She is never seen in public.
Sons Karan and Rajvir are not to be photographed. There's an unwritten
rule in the Deol household: the women will not act. Being inscrutable
is part of his shtick even on the sets of Karz, though when an assistant
switches on a fan during a take, he barks, "Us ulloo de patthe
ne fan nahin on karna tha (That **** was not supposed to switch on
the fan)."
His bark is there when he talks about Yash Chopra
too. Ask him if he was in awe of Amitabh Bachchan when working with him,
and he asks in turn, "When I have the greatest actor in the world
in my house, why would I be in awe of anybody else?" The label of
a shouting machine with perpetually bloodied biceps is not likely to leave
him if his forthcoming films are anything to go by: he's a vigilante supercop
in Indian, there's also the Kargil-esque drama Maa Tujhe Salaam,
and other action adventures. But ask him about the action hero tag that
he so hates, and he shoots back, "People talk about action as though
there is no acting involved. Then they should call the others dancing
stars or romantic stars because all they do is run around trees and romance."
For Sunny Deol, whether as the jailbreaker in Ghayal or Tara Singh
roaring at the cowering Pakistan police in Gadar, romancing his
audiences may be just a piece of beefcake.
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