His mother is a bio chemist, his father a scientist-he represented Maharashtra in swimming for 13 years, was national champ for four and he is an electrical engineer to boot. But what Milind Soman became famous for, were his chiseled looks, athletic physique and melting brown eyes. From the late 80s onwards, he wowed the modeling world becoming India’s first super model, and later forayed into films and television. With some international projects under his belt, and looking forward to the soon to be released thriller Bhram An Illusion directed by Pavan Kaul, Milind Soman is also producing a second film after his super successful first production offering: Rules: Pyar Ka Superhit formula.
Once you finally corner him down for an interview, you’ll soon discover that chatting with Milind Soman is quite an exercise of the mind. He is extremely bright, has a great sense of humor, comes up with very interesting quips and observations, some of which had me in splits, is a die hard romantic(he still thinks the 6 year old girl he fell for as a child, was true love!) and in spite of a terrible cold and cough patiently went on to answer every question for over an hour. It went into many diverse tangents, all very delightful and thought provoking.
So Mom’s a bio chemist and dad a scientist- what have you taken from each parent that has stood you in good stead if you were to look back on your life? You also have three sisters and you are the only brother. That’s a lot of women in your life right there!
I think I get my competitiveness from my father because he always insisted on the best. You knew that everything you do has to be the best that you can do. Its not that otherwise don’t do it but just keep trying. From my mother I think the very valuable lesson has been never to judge other people, because in all fairness, you really can’t. These two things have helped me tremendously in life to remain balanced, to have a sensibility that allows you to see things from all perspectives.
Yes I did learn a lot about the way women are and also about the way the world is because women are so much more intuitive about the world, about how to live life in a very gentle way, a very sympathetic way rather than taking and taking. I think I have learnt from having three women in the family, not having to live up to any macho image of an elder male member of the family. Its great to have the emotional support of women in your growing years, and at any age in your life. I think I’ve been quite lucky from that perspective.
My parents were never rigid in their thinking and that is probably because they traveled a lot. They were living in England for many years-they studied there, worked there, so they were much more liberal. They said there are many things you can do, and you don’t have to become an engineer, doctor or a lawyer. The reason I did engineering was because all my friends went to engineering college and I said well since they are going there I’ll go there as well. It was not any interest that I had, or any interest that my parents had. They were quite okay with me doing anything that I enjoyed doing.
You have been quite the sportsman. What attracted you to sports at a time when most Indians focused on just academics. Do you see any changes in the way sports in India is today from the time you started out over 2 decades ago?
Fitness has always been very very important to me because I know what your life can be when you are fit, what your life can be if you are not. I’ve been in sports from the age of 10 and my fitness level has been 80 percent all the time as opposed to people who don’t practice and have been living their lives at a fitness level of 40-45 percent and you miss out on so much of a good feeling about life, an ability to handle stress in a better way, to be much happier, more content, more at peace, more positive, more of everything. So that feeling is very addictive. Every time I run I want to run more, to hit that high. If I run 20 kms, I run that extra 200 meters. I feel great and that lasts me the whole time trill I run the next time. I have never stopped myself from eating anything at all. I have never been to a gym. I have always been an outdoor person and always been exercising cardio all my life as in running, swimming, cycling, trekking, something free, not sticking with one muscle group. It’s totally unnatural to me and something I do not believe is good for fitness at all. Okay you want one big muscle, you work it out, you’ll have the one big muscle but that’s not fitness. Also you may have great stamina, great endurance, your heart may be in great shape, that’s great, but to me fitness is really having a great balance between your mind, spirit and your body and really that only happens when you practice sport because that last 10 meters of any race is when you need to be in that zone otherwise you are not going to win. You have to go beyond your physical capability, your mental capability and you have to go beyond what your spirit can do. All three have to be in sync to achieve what you can do best.
Nothing really has changed in Indian sports and the thing is until the corporates or private organizations take up the cause of sports nothing can happen because our government unfortunately lacks vision in every aspect. If you see the way India has grown economically there are huge trumpets blaring all over the place saying that it is a new growing super power and we are really doing and the fact is India as a whole country has woken up-okay maybe not every single person but every body who could do something has begun moving simultaneously. The government has said okay if it is what you want to do, do it. Its not that they are leading the country at all. In fact they are just facilitating it which is also of course a good thing but our leadership completely lacks vision and any kind of leadership quality.
In our sports people have to struggle against incredible odds to prove themselves. There are so many examples of very very talented people who could have made it big but did not have the facilities, the training, the infrastructure, the advice, the counseling. They just had talent but the kind of level sports is at, in the world today, you cant just have talent. That talent has to be honed to an incredible degree and that has to be done by a lot of support from a lot of people and those people in India do not exist except for may be cricket. The kind of sports medicine, sports techniques and just the research on how to train a particular athlete because the way their body is built or their mindset, the kind of research they do abroad is phenomenal. They work on the mind because finally the body is the least of it. You can train the body but if you don’t have the mind or the spirit or the will you are not going to win, so that kind of preparation from childhood is necessary.
Did you ever think of modeling while growing up?
Never. In fact when I started modeling, I didn’t know modeling was a profession. I started modeling in 1988. “ Ensemble” which was the first fashion boutique in India had opened in 1987. In fact we just had a fashion show where I walked the ramp after 10 years. When I got an offer to be a model, which was- “We want you to advertise for these shirts and that’s it.” I said what do I have to do and how much do I get paid? How much do you pay? Do you do this on the side. Those were the questions I was asking them. It was that basic and rudimentary, my understanding of the business, that is. So that’s the level at which it was then.
There was no satellite TV, no Sunday supplements in papers, no glamour magazines, no FM radio; once you have that, you know what level you are in business, in different fields especially in the media…but there was no media.
They paid me 50,000 rupees. It was a huge amount for changing my shirt six times. I thought these people were really stupid. Of course I didn’t know the scale of the business and what exactly they were gaining out of it.
Then you got your first role in Tarkeib and that too with stellar performers like Nana Patekar, Tabu and others. How was the experience. Did you feel nervous?
I’m very relaxed and laid back but I’m also very competitive. But my competitive streak is directed mainly towards myself. I don’t really compete with people, I don’t grudge them what they have, I don’t see them as competition because there is just so much to improve within yourself at every level-in my personal life, the way I treat my family, the way I’m with my wife or my friends, in my business, or even in sports.
I love to run and every time I run, I like to run better than I did the last time, whether I’m running every day in practice or whether I’m running a marathon and that comes from my swimming background. I represented Maharashtra for 13 years, I was the national champion for four years so that does actually mould your perspective towards life, your attitude. Being a sports person you don’t actually compete on a personal level. You compete at the level of the sport, at the level of life, at the level of overcoming obstacles, at the level of reaching your goal no matter what the cost to yourself, but there is always an aspect of fair play towards every body who’s a part of it and I really think sports gives you all that and a great advantage to be trained at a young age.
So I don’t consider it as being pitted against these actors. When every body knows what they are doing and they are very confident about the role, they will play it very well and that makes it easier. Its like when you are in a film or doing anything in life with people who are incompetent and don’t know what to do, it makes it much more difficult, and film making is a very collaborative effort. Every single person who’s doing their job better be doing it really well, if you want to have a great film. So Nana was a great support, extremely helpful, so was Tabu, so was Shilpa, all very good actors. It was great to be there.
I was in a film before that – Jo Jeeta wohi Sikander. In the long shots even today you can see me. I had problems with the producers and also with Mansoor Khan on a personal level. We just weren’t able to get along. In fact I had shot almost 40 percent of the film.
Agnivarsha is one of my favorite films, and your role, that of a simpleton who mutely worships his brother and father, and protects his sister in law, suddenly comes into his own, was pretty challenging.
It was a very difficult, extremely complex role. I’m very proud of my performance. In fact when I saw the film it was hard to believe that was me and I think that is a great achievement for an actor, a great feeling of satisfaction when you look on the screen and you cannot recognize the person is yourself. In fact they offered me Nagarujna’s role earlier. Of course I said I love the story, I’ll do any role that you give me and then somehow it all changed and they offered me the central role in the film. I was 36 or 37 then and this character was maybe 20 years old. I told Arjun(Arjun Sajnani the director)-You want me to play a 20 year old. I don’t think I can do it but he said I think you can. It was a great opportunity to do a really beautiful film and the rest of the cast was wonderful to work with.
That role was pretty underplayed as well. Dino Morea said to me that if you are subtle people think you can’t act. They like loud performances.
I agree with what Dino said but I don’t blame the critics and the audience for reacting that way because Indian films have a particular style and you have to work within that style. Even between films and theater there is a difference. In theater the acting is very loud, and they have to be that way in terms of their expressions, in terms of their voice projection. On the other hand, you can’t do that when you are doing a close up in a movie. So you have to understand that the style is expected in the medium. If you are acting in an Iranian film, for example the style is completely different, if you are acting in a French film you have to adapt and play the character in that style.
The audience is changing and cinema is also developing. We are creating new genres of movies. Earlier there was only Bollywood, and the other side(parallel cinema). Many people think the name Bollywood is derogatory. I don’t think so. The term, actually describes a style of film making which is very important. You have very typically stereotypical emotions, you have very cardboard characters and you have very thin story lines and that’s what characterizes Bollywood films technically but the fact is that it’s a genre of film.
You co-produced Rules: Pyar Ka Super hit Formula. Great music, perfect casting and an out and out entertainer. Pretty good for a first production.
Yes the musician Sandesh Shandilya did an inspiring piece of work. It was our first movie and we were extremely passionate about it and of course we wanted everything to be new, fresh, wonderful and surprising even for us. We worked very very hard on the preparation, the planning, the story and the structure. The structure is quite unusual with box pops. No other film had tried box pops tied in as real characters in the film so I think I’m very proud of that movie.
A lot of research that we did was from get to know yourself books and self help books on relationships and how to create relationships and what you want to do if you want to get close to a man. You know all those things that are full of fluff but do sort of reflect our psychology if you look at it. The way we live our life in society, the kind of games we play all the time-all of us do it at various stages of our lives. The first rule is that if you like somebody, to get them to like you, you have to ignore them. That is the most common thing-everybody knows that. We took all those things and put them in the movie.
Going by your track record and the number of women you’ve been surrounded by from the age of 6 when you fell in love with a girl called Anne and still claim it was true love, you certainly haven’t followed that rule! Did you ever meet her?
My God, you really have been reading up on me. No I didn’t-I didn’t want to also! Anne- no I haven’t met her but I would love to if it ever happens, and I found out where she was which I probably could if I did a little research! I could probably meet her and that would be quite something because I still remember it even today and it was very special!
I believe you are producing another film – Phir Zindagi with the ageless beauty, the legendary Waheeda Rehman and Gul Panag?
Yes its almost complete. In fact the shooting was complete quite some time ago. Then we recorded the background music but we hated it and so we recorded it again and that’s almost complete now. It’s turned out very well. Waheeda ji is absolutely lovely, very charming, very elegant, beautiful, beautiful lady. Gul also-she is such a wonderful girl. She is so bright and so full of life and ideas and she is interested in everything. In fact the character was very very complex for her but she has done it very well. In fact some people that we showed the film to said-heroine ko aise nain karna chahiye.yeh expression theek nahin. (a heroine should not be doing this. This expression isn’t appropriate) But the thing is that she has performed a role you would never excpect a Hindi film heroine to do and done it very well.
You have two international projects under your belt. Pan Nalin’s Valley of Flowers and Arn the Knight Templar. How was that experience?
Pan Nalin is into a lot of things – mysticism, eastern mysticism, spirituality, sexuality, taboo, voodoo- everything that people like to think about but don’t like to talk about. He is a very interesting guy and he has researched this stuff all over the world and so he has a lot of ideas, and of course he has an extremely fertile imagination and also a very interesting vision. I’d love to work with him again.
It was my first international film and it was very exciting to work with a crew from all over the world literally. There were a lot of people from all over Europe, India, Japan, China. Germany. There was a crew that was Norwegian, Tibetan, Ladakhi-there was Mylene (now Milind’s wife) who’s French. It was a fascinating experience.
I must say it was so different, from the way we work in India. I’m sure the Indian system has its positive side-they are very quick and adaptable. Things go wrong all the time and we know how to make it right immediately but a lot more things go wrong because we don’t believe in planning anything. That is something that invades every aspect of our life. Its part of being Indian. The Indian system works like that, but out there planning, script writing takes more than a year or two. We start shooting when we don’t even have a script. There its very very different. Indian film making is very organic and film makers like to be organic in America also but I think a balance between the two would be the best thing.
One would love to have things come together organically, surprisingly and something that you didn’t really predict happening in a positive way-and yet sticking to a schedule, to a budget and a release date-all these things happening together will be ideal. The international crew –each person is so dedicated to their job it’s an inspiration. They are so proud of what they do. Whether it’s an art director, a costume director, a light person-they have to do it perfectly, otherwise they are not happy.
Of course there it is one person for one thing-here its one person for ten things and there is a lack of efficiency-you forget so many things because one person can’t do so many jobs. That’s the way we work even though labor is so cheap in India. So every one compromises and then the film becomes a compromise which is not a good thing.
Arn the Knight Templar is actually the biggest Scandinavian production ever. Again it was a crew from all over Scandinavia. Its by a Swedish company, the director is Danish, so is the Director of Photography, the crew was from all over. It’s a famous trilogy they made into a film. It was a very exciting role for me though not the lead, but they had me on all the posters so that was great!
But then lead roles are not half as exciting as the negative ones, or the ones with shades of gray.
Yes, in essence the bad guy is always better. He is much more exciting, much more charismatic, much more watchable. If you look at Silence of the Lambs its Anthony Hopkins for whom you watch it. When you see A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson is fantastic-and Jack has may be four scenes but you remember him and you are excited by those scenes and the way he plays them. I think the lead characters are always the most predictable. You know that they will be set upon by the bad guys and then they’ll get back and they’ll believe in A, B, C and D which we all believe in but we want to know about the other people and what they believe in and why are they doing what they do and what do they get out of it?
That is why you need someone good looking or charismatic to play the positive character otherwise no body will bother about him. I’d love to do anything that is well written and interesting and I think there are more and more actors wanting to experiment and it’s a good step for Indian movies.
You have produced television serials as well. How challenging is that?
The challenge is actually to do your best. The product is dictated by the TV channel because they are the client so you have to give them what they want. It’s not like a movie where it’s your vision, and you want to surprise the audience with your vision, all that you want to say to them through the cinematic language. The television channel is a like a woman. She wants her blouse to fit perfectly and you have to give her a perfectly fitting blouse-if you don’t you have failed- that’s it. Its probably not the best way to put it but that’s the way we all feel here as producers.
If you were to re do a film which one would it be and I believe you like one of my favorite books – Of Human Bondage by William Somerset Maugham?
That’s very difficult to answer. If I liked a film and everything about it, I can’t see how I could have done better. Like if you take Gone with the Wind for example, The role of Rhett Butler is fantastic and I don’t think I could do it better than Clark Gable. I love him in the role so much that I don’t want anybody else in that role-even myself!
But I would love to act in a movie like that, be a part of a film like that, or an epic, something really grand, absolutely deep that talks about life, about people-something that touches you very deeply and not in few emotions that we feel every day.
Of Human Bondage is an incredibly well written book. Every time you come across a character you can relate to that character. Normally when you see a film or read a book, you relate to one character, but when you are reading Of Human Bondage you feel a part of every single character and that is something very unusual and very powerful about that book. You find yourself on both sides of the story. Sometimes you like the good guy and say I know exactly how he feels and I would have done exactly the same thing. Then you are on the other side, you see the bad guy and you say I understand exactly and I would have done the same thing so that’s amazing.. that’s really fantastic.
Finally, how are you so relaxed and comfortable in your own skin?
It is something that came to me while I was a sports person – really being comfortable with my myself, really liking myself, accepting that I have faults and I have weaknesses but accepting them as part of me and saying its okay. It gives you a lot of courage and a lot of ability in your life. Then you are not looking for support from anywhere else because you are okay.
You just have to think about the fact that there may be a lot of people criticizing you, but how good are they? It’s not a question of judging but saying we are all the same. Einstein was probably weak in other things, so if someone is critical he is probably being defensive about his own weaknesses, so I should feel sorry for him instead of feeling offended. No body is perfect. No body can judge you, harm you. The only person who can make a difference in your life is you.