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00:00Hi, this is Manjusha Radhakrishnan. I am the entertainment editor, Gulf News. Today we have
00:09with us Babel Khan, an amazing talent, an explosive talent, I think. And I feel you're
00:14very underrated, Babel. We should see more of you. And I'm so happy that you're there.
00:19How can I be underrated if I'm not been seen enough?
00:24That's correct. That is true. We are yet to see. I mean, I feel there's a lot of untapped
00:29talent out there. And in logout on Z5 Global, we're going to see more of you. So you need
00:34to tell me, like you have actually voiced my worst fears. Me without a phone, I cannot
00:40imagine it. It kind of debilitates me. I'm like addicted to it. I'm a phone addict. So
00:46it talks to me on several levels. Perhaps you can tell me, why should we watch the movie
00:50Babel?
00:51I wouldn't want to tell you that there's a message or preach any message to you for the
00:56simple reason that I genuinely believe that the moment you do that, you limit the film
01:00to that message. I think it is important to watch a film for the love for cinema. It's
01:07entertaining at the bare minimum, for sure. It's a fast paced film. And at the end of the
01:12day, it also apart from the phone, apart from, you know, the structure, the phone, the addiction
01:18to phone and social media say it's the skeleton of the film. But I would say the soul of that
01:24film is rather about how an individual sacrifices self love for validation or external validation
01:33and starts believing that their identity is the image that is formed through the opinion
01:38of others rather than an opinion of themselves. Once that happens, I think individuality suffers
01:46and the spark of the soul dies. And with that empathy dies. So I think that is the soul of
01:52the film for me.
01:53It is so true what you just said. Seeking external validation is what we do best, I think, right?
01:58As digital natives now, we are expected to, like my KPI, I can tell you, is to grow my Instagram
02:04followers. Isn't the world moving towards that? Where social media is more important than actual
02:09connection. So I don't think that social media, I think, I think that's why, why I said that
02:13is because, uh, social media and phone is used as the structure of this film because it's what
02:20is happening right now. But honestly, like our grandparents always used to be like, what people
02:28will say, what people will think has been going on for ages and our individuality is suffering
02:33because of that. That has been happening forever. You know, it is just that we've taken something
02:39from our present time, an aggravating factor on the soul of the film, which I've just discussed
02:44and as the structure of the film, but phone addiction, it's just what is happening in the
02:49present time.
02:50Babu, you have to tell me the first, the scenes where you are very frustrated. I thought you
02:54really looked like your life is just going to blow up in your face. I love that scene where
03:00you're just like, there's so much latent rage in you. And it's really, I'm like, Oh my God,
03:06you have to talk, walk me through that scene. I thought that was interesting in the trailer.
03:10I had actually done an interview when this film was not even announced and nobody knew about
03:16it. Uh, and I had said something about having an answer on how to cut out of a character because
03:23I remember that we, the 22 days that we shot this film, I was constantly just there in the
03:29emotion and with the character. And, um, I was just living that one day again and again
03:36and again, and again, every day for 22 days, it was supposed to be 26 days, but because
03:40we were, uh, I mean, we had an incredible technical team and, uh, an incredible director,
03:48incredible writer, incredible producers. So we finished it in 22 days, but those 22 days,
03:53I, yeah, yeah, it was just, I would like to say that it's difficult and I, and Oh my God,
04:00it took such a toll, but honestly, I loved it. Like, even though it's my passion, you know,
04:05it's, I'm in this profession for a reason and I go through whatever I have to go through and
04:10I love it. I love every bit of it. Do you think that social media should be weaponized now or
04:16if you can use it well, and you know, people don't go to the darker side, you, you, you are
04:21better off. I, I, I think social media is not the problem. We love to blame things. That's human
04:27nature. We don't, as human beings, we do not like to take responsibility for actions. It's easier to
04:33blame. It's easier to hate. Right. So we're like, Oh, social media, social media is a problem. Phone,
04:37phone is the problem. No, it's, they are devices. They are just there in our existence. It's how we
04:42apply our usage to it. That is what's important. I am apparently very much on social media and
04:49people must think that I have a huge, a lot of screen time. My screen time is actually zero
04:54minutes. It's zero minutes in the promotions. It's gone to nine minutes and nine minutes. It's,
04:59that's the highest screen time I've ever had. Even though I am posting regularly, this and that,
05:06it all, it takes is 45 seconds. You know, you can post and get out. You don't have to scroll
05:11and come, you know, the doing scrolling. Yeah. Yeah. The thing is, even when you're scrolling,
05:18choose the content that you want to, I don't like scrolling, but if you like scrolling,
05:22choose the right content, content word, but you know, I don't like the word content,
05:27but choose what you're absorbing. It's very important, important in our age to choose what
05:32we're absorbing because there's so much information being put on us. It's the age of information,
05:38right. More than anything. It's not right. People think it's age of technologies, age of
05:42information. Information is the biggest currency right now. No, but you need to tell me like,
05:47you know, we look at social media. These days you can slate a movie with one word, right? On a review,
05:54your 22 days of hard work is reduced to that two words, good, bad, ugly, whatever. Like,
05:59how do you perceive it? Look at it and think it's so reductive to reduce it to one word,
06:04but that's what people want. Rapid reviews, et cetera. How do you look at that?
06:08I think, I think people want certainty and I, and I wrote something recently on my notes
06:13where uncertainty is certain for sure, but our seek for certainty is what makes us categorize
06:21things. That's how, that's how actors also get stereotyped, right? In our human nature,
06:26it's a thing. It is not an emotional thing. It's just a, it's just a survival mechanism where we like
06:31to put label upon things. So that is not unknown. We are so scared of the unknown. We are so scared
06:37of the uncertain that we do not accept gray. We like black or white. We need that black or white
06:43because there's certainty in that. Gray does not have any certainty. No, I hope the movie revels in
06:49the gray spots because you have to be open enough to accept the grays, right? I mean, that's the whole
06:54point of art. So here is hoping you revel in the gray roles and I want to see you only not in black
07:00and white. Always in gray, honey. Thank you so much. Thank you.