Iqbal Khan recalls ‘playing with fire’ as he completes 20 years in television
Iqbal Khan celebrates two decades of Kaisa Yeh Pyaar Hai. The actor recalls his daring stunts on the TV show and reflects on his character Angad's impact on him
Iqbal Khan became a household name with his debut TV show Kaisa Yeh Pyaar Hai in 2005. As the show marked its 20th anniversary recently, the actor feels proud of the fact that the ‘rockstar’ character got introduced in showbiz with the show.
“It’s such a happy and pleasant feeling. With this show, it was the first time a rockstar was introduced on screen. The kind of love and support that was shown towards Angad’s character was something that can’t be defined in words,” he shares, adding that the love for the show is such that the fans have kept it alive even today.
Going down memory lane, Iqbal remembers the time he ‘played with fire’ for the show. “In the title sequence, I'm dancing with a guitar and there's fire behind me. While it looked aesthetically good, there were no special effects used. It was actual fire and during the shot, it became so crazy that I felt the heat on my back. Then I saw the DOP running towards me and that's when I realised that the fire had gone out of hand. But we still got that shot,” he recalls.
In these 20 years, Iqbal has worked across mediums and build a brand of his own, but the principle he has followed all this while is ‘quality over quantity’. “When I take up any project, I don't sign up for anything on the side as I need to focus on what I am doing,” he says, adding that while the numbers never mattered to him, he is bothered by a different kind of number taking precedence over skills in the acting world today—Instagram follower count. But he is optimistic. “With the body of work I have done over the years, I don’t think that I need to be concerned about being cast based on my activity or following on social media. Having said that, I also believe that a good director wouldn’t bother to see how much of a fan base you have. He would be more focused on creating good content,” he ends.
