Irrfan’s next film would have been about a pandemic
Filmmaker Anand Gandhi wishes he had created something with him
Photo: File
Before his untimely death, Bollywood actor Irrfan Khan was discussing the possibility of appearing in a film about pandemics by filmmaker Anand Gandhi, according to The Hindustan Times.
The actor died after a two-year battle with cancer last week at the age of 54.
According to the website, Gandhi had been developing a script based on women scientists, fighting a contagion.
The film, titled Emergence, would have featured Khan, said Gandhi while talking to Mumbai Mirror. He said that he had become friends with Irrfan over the years. “We explored the possibility of his presence in Tumbbad before the final script and schedule changed things. He’d have been in Emergence too. I wish I had created something with him,” he added.
Gandhi had also roped in Larry Brilliant as an executive producer on the film. Larry had worked on the teams that helped eradicate smallpox and controlled polio. Gandhi said, “Like a detective, he figures out the epicentre of a pandemic and calculates the R-naught of the contagion, which is a measure of how many people it can infect.”
Gandhi said that he is collaborating with an American studio on the ‘big-budget’ project, and that his script has been very prophetic. “My script predicted the rise of rightwing politics, storage crisis for scientific data, paleomicrobe releasing from thawing of the Arctic and behavioural changes brought on by a pandemic,” he said.
Khan’s last acting project was Angrezi Medium, a sequel to his film Hindi Medium starring Pakistani actor Saba Qamar.
For more than 30 years, the Bollywood star entertained cinemagoers. He started his career from Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay! in 1988 and Ek Doctor Ki Maut (1990) starring Shabana Azmi. He spent the following decade establishing himself as a versatile actor, starring in films such as The Warrior, Maqbool (based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth), Life in a Metro, Nair’s film based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, Wes Anderson’s Darjeeling Limited and A Mighty Heart, a film based on the Daniel Pearl case, starring Hollywood’s Angelina Jolie as Mariane Pearl.
Khan also starred in the Hollywood blockbuster Slumdog Millionaire (2008) starring Dev Patel, Anil Kapoor and Farida Pinto.
Khan was one of the only Bollywood actors who transitioned well into Hollywood. After starring in Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, Khan went on to secure roles in Life of Pi (2012), The Amazing Spider Man (2012), Jurassic Park (2015) and Inferno (2016).
