How do you describe your roles in the three films of yours that will release this year?
Angrezi Mein Kehte Hai, my first release this year, is set in Banaras and I play a 25-year-old loudmouth in it. Shivani Raghuvanshi, who made her debut in Yash Raj’s Titli is opposite me and the film also stars Sanjay Mishra. How this young couple encourages the father, a 55-year-old man, to say ‘I love you’ to the woman he loves is what attracted me to it. It’s a loud, fun and happy character...a first of its kind for me.
Then there is Academy Award Nominee Ashvin Kumar’s Noor . I play the role of an Army Major in it who is stationed in Kashmir. He is aggressive and rude and it is perhaps my most violent role so far. I also have Robinhood Ke Pote , in which I play a young Muslim boy from Kanpur who takes on the system to become the city’s Robinhood.
You started off your acting career in the wonderful LSD . What kind of roles came your way after that?
I always wanted to make my debut with Dibakar Bannerjee, Anurag Kashyap or Sriram Raghavan, so it was a dream come true. And it was a love story, that was inspired by all of Aditya Chopra’s films.
After that, because I was doing a lot of plays, I was not focussed on doing too many films. KLPD director Sanjay Khanduri, who also made Ek Chalis Ki Last Local was the first director who came to me with a script saying he had written a role for me. Luckily, a lot of ads came my way.The kind of work I was getting on stage was much more exciting for me as an actor than the kind of work I was being offered in the film space. That’s why I waited. It’s only in the last 18 months that I have taken a sabbatical from stage and therefore ended up shooting for five films that will now release back to back. After LSD, I was offered a couple of films but they were in the same space. Though those films went on to become great, I let them pass because I didn’t want to repeat myself.
Your performance in the underrated Yeh Hai Bakrapur was interesting...
It was a very special film because Janki Vishwanathan is a National Award winning director, having made the wonderful Kutty . I wanted to do the movie the moment I heard the narration. It was a socio-political satire with a lot of black humour. I had a lot of fun acting in the film because we shot the film in Hyderabad and most of the actors were from stage. It was also the most heroic character I’ve played in the most ‘Bollywood’ sense of the term.
Do you still get time to act in plays?
For the past 18 months, I have consciously decided to take a sabbatical from stage after I finished The Boy Who Stops Smiling and Jumroo . I miss it and am itching to get back at. But, the time off stage gave me the chance to focus on films. I have never looked at theatre as a stepping stone to cinema but see it as riyaz as an actor. Theatre is meditation and cinema is euphoria. But I’m sure I will get back on stage with something bigger. I’m also in talks for a show on Broadway.
You’ve also assisted in films such as Subhash Ghai’s Black & White and Kaanchi . When will we see you direct your own film?
I started off as an assistant just to see how the sets worked. I wasn’t an assistant director on Kaanchi , but I did contribute creatively. I also produced Mona Darling . I might not take up direction because it a specialised job and I feel it should be left to specialists. My experience behind the camera has taught me enough to help new directors put a film together, which I did with Mona Darling .
But I never say never. I am an actor and I have trained all my life for it but I don’t know what the future has in store for me.
