Data, right?  That’s the plural and datum is the singular?  And since I am going to be talking about several separate quotes, I want “data”.

Rediff.com has boiled the launch down to the best quotes.  This is why I love rediff, they take their time and only bring you the best stuff.  Which means, the Salman quotes!

Anushka was there, but whooooo caaaaares?  I like Anushka and all, but unless she is going to give us inside Cricket gossip, I’m not really interested in what she has to say.  I am interested in what she inspires Salman to say though!  They asked her what it was like to work with the 3 Khans, and she backed off, saying she was hear to talk about Sultan (not Rab Ne with Shahrukh or PK with Aamir), so she would only talk about Salman.

“Salman is a very refreshing person to work with because, with him, what you see is what you get.”

Salman joked, “Aamir and Shah Rukhbilkul aise nahi hai (Aamir and Shah Rukh aren’t like that).”

Anushka continued, “He is unfazed by anything that happens around him.”

Tongue-in-cheek, Salman agreed, “Correct, Aamir aur Shah Rukh bilkul aise nahi hai (Aamir and Shah Rukh aren’t like that).”

Anushka continued, “If you see someone who is at the top of his career and still that way, you feel relaxed. He is very blessed and he has a lot of people around him who love him. Since I was announced for the film, the kind of messages I have got from Salman fans is unbelievable. When you see the film, you’ll realise how hard he has worked.”

“You’re lying,” said Salman.

“No, no, I am not,” countered Anushka. “Hats off to him for having done this at this stage in his career. I think it is amazing and I respect that a lot.”

So, Salman is a lot cleverer than I give him credit for!  Actually made me laugh.  Also, I like the little dropping in and out of Hindi.

Salman also provided some excellent quotes.  I am sure they were all primed and ready in advance, like when an American star goes on a talk show, but I still liked them!

The most difficult part in this film has been the langot (loincloth). Today, I understand what heroines feel when they do the swimsuit shots.

“When I was told I had to wear a langot, I thought I could do it. When I reached there (the venue of the shoot), I saw a crowd of 5,000 which included ladies. I was like, no way am I doing this. When I was walking out of the vanity van to the location, I was in tears. I felt violated. And I am not shy at all. I don’t feel ashamed to remove my shirt and wear shorts.”

“included ladies”!  I feel so sorry for him!  Except, my sense is that this was said a bit tongue in cheek with a twinkle in the eye, so he doesn’t actually want us to feel sorry for him.

Remember how I watched the trailer and went “well, this is just Rocky moved to India!”  According to Salman and the director (Ali Abbas Zafar), that is NOT the case.  But I still don’t believe it.

“It isn’t a biopic. Not is it based on any real life incident. It is from Ali’s head. It is a story of an underdog.”

Ali added, “It is a fictional story. It is a Hindustani kahaani (Indian story), a story about relationships in which sports is the backdrop. The common thing between life and wresting is that, in both, people fall but you have to rise again. That’s what the film stands for.”

Here is Salman’s version of the story.  Which, following the traditional form of Indian film promotion, reveals the entire first half, but not what happens next.

“Sultan is a simple man who has no ambition. He sees a feisty girl and falls in love with her. She’s a wrestler and he is nobody. He feels that, if he gets married, it will be to her only but then it goes wrong because she is strong-headed. She misunderstands him. It’s all about Sultan — how he goes down, then comes back up again with the help of the woman he loves. This results in a happy, beautiful love story which may or may not be the end of this film.”

Salman and Anushka both talked about the physical toll of the film, training and learning to wrestle.  But I don’t care about that, and they didn’t make any jokes, so I’m not pulling any of those quotes.  But the way Salman ended that part was interesting.

There’s a scene in the trailer where Salman is running with a train. “That’s also difficult, running at my age,” laughed Salman and added, “Obviously we want this to be the biggest hit of our lives and Ali has given his life to the film.”

Remember how Maneesh Sharma dreamed of making a film with Shahrukh for years, and Aditya Chopra mentored him and built him up to that point?  It sounds like the same thing might have happened with Ali!  Salman makes that comment that “Ali has given his life”, and then Ali himself continues:

Ali said, “I am fortunate to work with Sir (Salman). When you write a character, you visualise an actor who can pull it through. We (Aditya Chopra and Ali) were very clear that we will only make this film if Sir agrees to do it. When you take a script to a big star, you think that character will do justice to his stardom. The story narration took 20 minutes. When he heard it, he instantly said this is something I relate to. That’s how the journey of Sultan began.”

Sharing his learning experience, Ali said, “Nobody can beat the experience and Salman has experience of 25 years. There’s a lot of Salman in the film because his contribution to it is phenomenal. He never pointed the bigger things to me, he only told me about the small ones. My learning from Sultan is that the depth of a film lies in the small things, not the big ones. As for the rest, you’ll see it on Eid.”

Isn’t that interesting!  At least, to me.  Just like Maneesh Sharma, he has made two moderately successful films for Yash Raj before this.  Just like Maneesh Sharma, he started as an assistant director for Yash Raj almost ten years ago.  Is this Adi’s system?  He starts people off as ADs, then gives them small star-less films, and then finally arranges for them to make a movie with a Khan?  If so, it is kind of brilliant!  He can’t direct everything, he needs to get some other auteurs around the studio, but he also needs to make sure they prove themselves before they get a chance to play around with a Khan.

Oh!  And he is doing the reverse with himself!  He let Ranveer Singh work with a bunch of other people until he was built up into a big enough star to be able to play around with a real Aditya Chopra film.