We speak to Farhan Akhtar about his art being all about connection and stories that linger

Farhan Akhtar has this way of making everything he does look effortless, even when it clearly isn’t. On screen, he can be quiet and thoughtful in one scene and completely intense in the next. Over the years, he’s played all sorts of roles — a singer, a soldier, a poet, a boxer, an athlete — and somehow, they all feel like they belong to him. He doesn’t go over the top. It’s the small things that linger: a look, a pause, the way he moves. Those tiny moments are what you remember.

From Rock On!! to Don 3, the multi-hyphenate star shares how every role, song, and story is just another way to feel, connect, and keep creating without boundaries

Music has always been a part of Farhan. For him, it’s personal, almost like a conversation with whoever is listening. People first heard that side of him in Rock On!!, but it didn’t stop there. His band, Farhan Live, has taken him across the country. Every show gets the same care he gives to his films. We got a chance to speak to Farhan right before his recent performance at the Bollywood Music Project, along with Shankar Ehsaan Loy. You can tell by his voice how much he cherishes music. Picture something like the final scene of Rock On!! When Farhan, alongside the band members he considers his brothers, serenade the crowd as they cheer on. Farhan is not chasing the spotlight. He is chasing connection. Whether it is a song or a scene, he wants people to feel something real.

“Music is my alter ego. It’s a parallel life that runs alongside everything else,” shares Farhan. “We recently released a song called Aabshaaro, which I worked on with Neeraj Sridhar and Irshad Kamil.” One listen to Aabshaaro and it’s easy to see why it’s connecting with people. The gentle chimes in the music, paired with Farhan’s deep baritone vocals, bring to life a song that’s all about the free flow of water. It’s a feeling that reflects Farhan too.

His creativity flows without boundaries. He doesn’t put his work into separate boxes. Whether it’s acting, directing, writing, or singing, for him, it’s all about telling a story.

When asked how connecting with the audience differs in live music compared to filmmaking, he says, “With live music, there is just an immediate kind of energy exchange that happens between the audience and the performer. With films, you have to wait to see how people are going to feel on a larger level.”

As the director behind films like Lakshya, Don – The Chase Begins Again, and Dil Chahta Hai, which changed the landscape of the early 2000s Indian cinema, or the actor behind the fun-loving poet, Imran, in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara—which is a bench-marker of films on friendship—to the producer of Superboys of Malegaon, considered one of the best films of 2025, Farhan says choosing projects is instinctive.

“It’s like when someone starts talking to you. Within the first 15 or 20 seconds, you know whether you’re interested or not. It’s the same with a story. Whether I read it or someone narrates it, I usually know in the first minute if it speaks to me,” he says.

Farhan doesn’t worry about whether a film is commercial or artistic. “If something makes me curious, if I think I’ll learn from it or simply enjoy it, then that’s enough. There has to be something that tells me to give it more time.” At the end of the day, what matters most is his own excitement. “I just ask myself if I’ll be happy to wake up and do this every day. If the work has something real in it, people will find it,” the actor reasons.

Right now, Farhan is a busy man. His film 120 Bahadur is coming soon, and Don 3 is next on his directing slate. Whether he’s performing or filming, he invites you in. There’s warmth, humour, and sincerity in how he does it. With every song, scene, or monologue, he proves again and again that creativity is not about labels. It is about expression. And in everything he does, he makes you feel like you are experiencing it with him, right there in the moment.

Aabshaaro is streaming on all major platforms.

Email: anshula.u@newindianexpress.com

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