Farhan Akhtar is smiling to himself as he watches a rough-cut of his next acting assignment Karthik Calling Karthik in the luxury of his own office. The actor says he wanted to release KCK with Deepika Padukone on February 26. “However since there was a slight ambiguity at that point on whether Hrithik Roshan’s Kites would release on the same date, we shifted our release date. Both Duggu and Rakesh Roshan had spoken to me about Kites. If a friend is releasing his film on that date, I would naturally go out of my way to accommodate him.”

Farhan is very fond of Duggu. His sister Zoya Akhtar will start her next flick under Farhan and his friend Ritesh Sidhwani’s banner in April next year; a project which is already creating ripples because of its male line-up. “Zoya’s film will have Hrithik, Abhay Deol and me in the lead,” says Farhan. “But we don’t have a title yet. We’ve run out of English words for titles,” he laughs.

In September Farhan will don the mantle of director for the Bollywood’s Badshah SRK’s Don-2; one of the most anticipated sequels of all time. “Priyanka, SRK, Arjun Rampal and Boman Irani are on board,” he confirms.
Well, now that he is an actor, is he at all tempted to cast himself as Don? “You must be kidding me,” he laughs again. “Only SRK qualifies as Don... He is the biggest and the best.”

Though he has successfully juggled acting and directing, Farhan feels he is no where in the league of past masters like Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt who wore two hats simultaneously and did both jobs remarkably well. “I can either act or direct at a time, so when I’m acting, then I don’t direct,” he says.

What according to him is the most interesting aspect of his having turned actor? “Well I’m a happily married man... so I don’t flirt with my heroines,” he says. “The most interesting aspect of being an actor is that people from all over the world come forward to congratulate me for films like Dil Chahta Hai and Lakshya. When I made those films I was terribly media shy; and there were people who didn’t know what I looked like. Now that they have been re-introduced me as an actor, they come forward to congratulate me for my work as a director. Ironical isn’t it?”