People initially frowned upon me for intellectualising my characters: Boman Irani
When Boman Irani’s Dr Asthana laughed incessantly in “Munnabhai MBBS”, the audience instantly knew it was the character’s defence mechanism and the moment his Virus dropped the egg in “3 Idiots”, viewers got the message about the cut-throat world.Irani has a number of such memorable characters in both blockbuster and critically-acclaimed films to his credit, but he says there was a time when people frowned upon him for “doing homework” and “intellectualising stuff” on the sets.The actor, who was first noticed in 2003’s “Munnabhai MBBS”, says he enjoys the process of creating someone — who may have a style of speech or walking.”I spent a lot of time finding some soul of the characters. People remember certain characters by the way they spoke or walked. I think that is nothing to do with the character,” he said.Citing “3 Idiots” as an example, Irani said people remember his role as Virus because the character undergoes a transformation by the end of the story.”If Virus spoke differently or walked differently, he would still be hopefully impactful. But I don’t know, if he would be memorable,” he told DIN in an interview.”Virus is remembered because of the way his world view was, because you wanted him to change, because you wanted him to give the pen away and say, release yourself of the burden that you’re living by making your ego the most important thing,” he said, adding he, too, felt relieved when his character gave the pen away to Aamir’s Rancho in the end.
