People initially frowned upon me for intellectualising my characters: Boman Irani

When Boman Irani's Dr Asthana laughed incessantly in "Munnabhai MBBS", the audience instantly knew it was the character's defence mechanism and the moment his Virus dropped the egg in "3 Idiots", viewers got the message about the cut-throat world.

Irani has a number of such memorable characters in both blockbuster and critically-acclaimed films to his credit, but he says there was a time when people frowned upon him for "doing homework" and "intellectualising stuff" on the sets.

The actor, who was first noticed in 2003's "Munnabhai MBBS", says he enjoys the process of creating someone -- who may have a style of speech or walking.

"I spent a lot of time finding some soul of the characters. People remember certain characters by the way they spoke or walked. I think that is nothing to do with the character," he said.

Citing "3 Idiots" as an example, Irani said people remember his role as Virus because the character undergoes a transformation by the end of the story.

"If Virus spoke differently or walked differently, he would still be hopefully impactful. But I don't know, if he would be memorable," he told PTI in an interview.

"Virus is remembered because of the way his world view was, because you wanted him to change, because you wanted him to give the pen away and say, release yourself of the burden that you're living by making your ego the most important thing," he said, adding he, too, felt relieved when his character gave the pen away to Aamir's Rancho in the end.

A lot of people believe, especially while doing real life characters, that the imitation is wide open, but Irani said it's not good enough.

"That works with or without a walk and talk. It's about how he feels and how it's changed from the beginning to the end of the movie. And if you don't see the change, he is never memorable."
The 59-year-old actor said while taking up a role he asks three questions to himself -- 'What does this guy want out of life?', 'How does he struggle to get what he wants?' and 'If he fails, how does he change?'
"I keep telling people to never look at the length of the role. 'Oh, I have nothing to do, I would be invisible after 25 pages of the script. But for those 25 pages, people were talking about my character, Khurana."
"My character doesn't need money. He has a little, beautiful bungalow where he practises his medicine. Something may come in the way of the want, so there's a conflict due to ideological differences."
"I believe we got something positive out of it. She (Hilary Swank's character) told the world 'If I'd not come here, I would never have been a world champion. I'm a world champion, it's time to go. Big deal'. That's a positive lesson."