Akbar Khan’s perfect 10

Akbar Khan has zeroed in on a 10-year-old Egyptian boy, Mohammed, to play a pivotol role in his next production, Taxi Driver.

Akbar Khan has zeroed in on a 10-year-old Egyptian boy, Mohammed, to play a pivotol role in his next production, Taxi Driver. He is the son of filmmaker Mamdoh Al-Atrash. Khan bumped into Mohammed at the Damascus International Film Festival 2008, where he was honoured for his film Taj Mahal — An Eternal Love Story.

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“He’s my young friend who calls me Akbar,” smiles the filmmaker. “When I told him I wanted him in my film, he got straight down to business and asked me how much I was paying him.”

Quickie film
Khan says that though he hasn’t signed Mohammed on officially, he will definitely be part of his thriller that will also star a young lead pair, yet to be cast. The film, a quickie, will go on the floors by September-October and will be shot in a start-to-finish three-month schedule in London.

Recalling an encounter with a London cabbie, Khan says that back in the Hadsaa days when the song, ‘Bambai shehar haadson ka sheher hai…’ was playing everywhere, an Indian cabbie in London was so excited to be driving the star, that he forgot to put the meter down. “Of course, I paid him for that hour-and-a-half ride, and even included a generous tip,” Khan reminisces.

His Taxi Driver, he says, will not be anything like Dev Anand or Robert De Niro’s Taxi Driver. Khan says, “It’s an original script that I’ve written.”