From starting his journey as a child artist to getting skinny shamed to trying to make a comeback, actor Imran Khan has opened his heart in a candid way in an interview with Humans of Bombay.

The interview was released on Saturday. We bring you the top five things he touched upon in the interview.

On developing stammer issue as a child

The actor revealed he was three-year-old when his mother brought him back to India after her divorce. “My parents got divorced when I was three. My first school was very liberal with canning, due to which I developed a lot of development issues such as stammering. I also started feeling stressed and anxious. I used to shut down, that's when my mother took me out of the school,” he said in the interview.

He started his acting journey as a child in Jo Jeeta Woh Sikander. He says he initially wanted to be an archeologist. He developed this passion due to cinema -- Indiana Jones movies. His big acting debut as the main lead was in 2008 with Jaane Tu…Ya Jaane Na alongside Genelia D'Souza.

“I made my first film as a director when I was 10-year-old. I used to borrow a handy cam and get together with friends to do it. Now, I do it but with a script and a plan/,” he mentioned in the video interview.

On overcoming his depression

The actor admits that he started coming out of depression and feeling complete last year. And the attention on him turned out to be a major reason behind it, as he started feeling he was being rude by not responding to people concerned about his life and whereabouts. He realised that people didn’t forget about him, and the noise grew louder, he felt more responsible to answer the calls. “I felt pressured to stick my head out and show up. The whole process was deeply emotional for me,” he added.

On being skinny shamed

In the interview, he also admitted that he was shamed for being skinny. “The world looks at women and men in a certain way. It is easier for women to call it out,” he says, sharing that women find it easy to call out the male perception of classical beauty, and stand up against it.

According to him men buy into more. That’s what happened to him. There was a time when he was taking protein shakes and spending hours in the gym, only to realise that he can’t get bulky. That’s when he started taking steroids.

“The results are great but the sad things happen when you stop taking them. Because you feel depressed that you don't have the same body, and I am skinny again. It was all about external pressure. You have to have a conversation with yourself,” he says, and find a way to disconnect from the pressure.

On co-parenting his daughter

Imran separated from Avantika in 2019. They share daughter Imara together. Opening up about co-parenting with Avantika, he said that his childhood has been a useful template in his case. His parents divorced when he was three-year-old, and he puts, “They are good role models. Despite their differences, they were consciously engaged with me with the intention of loving me. I was their priority”.

That has been true in his case too, as he admits that the focus is on keeping Imara away from the pain and weight of the separation. He mentions that they keep telling her that these are problems of the “grown ups”. That they do it by being open about their feelings in a real way.

On his comeback

Imran's last release was Katti Batti, co-starring Kangana Ranaut. The film did not work at the box office. Sometime back, Imran revealed that his comeback- a spy series with Disney+ Hotstar was in the works but it got canned. At the moment, he is going through scripts to pick his comeback project.

Talking about his comeback, he said, “The sudden resurgence is kind of backwards. One would assume that I would be signing projects and promoting it. But I have not signed any project yet. I am open to working on a project and have been actively looking for the project”. He reveals he is meeting people and reading scripts at the moment. “There are some which have stirred my interest and are under development,” says the actor. He will only do projects which spark his interest, admitting that there are a lot of endorsements that have come up his way, but he is isnt picking any because he doesn’t want people to think that he is milking the attention coming his way.

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