Banaras actor Zaid Khan on Bollywood: 'I am a Kannadiga and I want to be part of Kannada Cinema"

As Zaid Khan braces himself for his 'Time Travel' debut in the pan-India film Banaras, the trailer launch event saw the actor address media from various industries. Directed by Jayathirtha of Bell Bottom fame, Banaras also stars Sonal Monteiro in the lead.

Zaid Khan's pan-India journey will be kicked-off on November 4

Zaid Khan's debut film Banaras is inching towards a pan-Indian theatrical release and the actor is super kicked about what he and the entire team have to offer. For Zaid, who happens to be the son of MLA Zameer Ahmed Khan, a career in cinema comes as a stark shift from what his family wished him to do professionally and by his admission, he feels like an outsider in the movie business despite the fame and the affluence that surrounds him. In the recent trailer launch event in Bengaluru, the young actor put his self-assured demeanour on display and spoke candidly with the media about his aspirations as an actor and what it took to convince his family about the same.

"I remember wanting to be an actor since I was very young and I had even approached our producer Mr Tilakrak Ballal back in 2013 to give me a break. I was willing to give up education because that's all I wanted - my family, on the other hand, wanted me to pursue something else together or even do nothing, if possible! However, I am here today and have striven hard to make sure that my debut isn't ordinary - be it the subject that I choose, the director I work with, or the way we wanted it to look and feel, I have always striven hard to put the best together. My father is yet to watch any of the glimpses from Banaras but I will surely invite him to the premiere of the film," said Zaid Khan while speaking to the media.

In the same vein, when asked about why he chose to be in the creative arts and tread the same path as his father and try out politics, Zaid made no bones about his stance and said, "I am not particularly fond of politics and I don't want to join politics."

The same media event saw journalists belonging to various film industries in attendance and many of them had directed incisive questions at Zaid Khan. Despite the heaviness of those queries, the debutant seemed unfazed and addressed each of them with composure. One such outlandish question pertained to Zaid Khan's religious faith and when a journo quizzed about cinema and entertainment being taboo in Islam, Zaid's quashed everything by saying that arts or cinema are completely devoid of religion and that he is there just as an artist and nothing else.

And soon after, when quizzed about the likelihood of joining Bollywood because he has the 'face' for it, Zaid Khan said, "I was approached for a Kannada film and Banaras is a Kannada film before it became a pan-India one. I have received numerous offers from Bollywood and my own producer is Mumbai-based but I am a Kannadiga and I want to be part of the Kannada film industry."

Banaras, written and directed by Jayathirtha, will release on November 4 in five different languages including Kannada. The film stars Sonal Monteiro as the female lead with Achyuth Kumar, Sujay Shastry, Devaraj, Sapna Raj, and Barkath Ali playing principal roles.

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