Boman Irani has built a reputation as one of Hindi cinema's most prepared actors. Ask him to shave, and he's running lines. Ask him to wear socks, and he's running lines. So when Priyadarshan told him to just say it once and walk off camera, something had to give.

"All my preparation has come to zero," Irani told Bollywood Hungama, describing his time on the set of Haiwaan, the crime thriller releasing in cinemas on September 11. It's a Hindi remake of the 2016 Malayalam film Oppam, which starred Mohanlal, and it brings together Irani, Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan under Priyadarshan's direction.

Irani's comments aren't a complaint. They read more like a small confession from an actor who's had to unlearn a habit mid-career. He described his usual method in some detail, rehearsing under his breath through the most mundane parts of his day, only to arrive on a Priyadarshan set and get told, don't bother.

"You have Mr. Priyadarshan telling you, 'Just say this one time, look into the camera, and just walk off the camera,'" Irani said.

What's interesting is how he's framed this as a lesson rather than a disruption. Irani said an actor who's too wedded to a single method isn't necessarily a good one. "If you are stuck to it and you are married to a method, then you are not a good actor," he said, adding that the real skill lies in preparing enough to still take direction on the spot, to turn a performance up or down when a director asks for it.

He also spent part of the conversation talking about Priyadarshan's filmmaking itself, calling out the director's ability to tell a story through simple camera movement and composition rather than anything showy. "I'll never be able to replicate his style," Irani said, adding that he prefers to just watch the man work.

Haiwaan is produced by Venkat K. Narayana and Shailaja Desai Fenn under KVN Productions and Thespian Films. With Kumar and Khan sharing screen space alongside Irani, and Priyadarshan directing his first big Hindi crime thriller in a while, there's a fair bit riding on how the film is received once it opens Friday.

For Irani, though, the story right now isn't about box office pressure. It's about an actor known for his discipline admitting, on the record, that the discipline didn't survive contact with this particular set. Whether audiences notice the difference on screen is the question Haiwaan will have to answer starting September 11.