Rajeev Khandelwal’s career graph has not seen a meteoric rise; it has been rather slow and steady. His latest film, Fever , though failed to impress at the box office. At a recent promotion of the film in Bengaluru, Rajeev says he doesn’t lament the fact that he doesn’t have a ‘godfather’ in the industry. “It would seem that I have borrowed my career from someone. The fun is to win over the audience again and again, and again. I want to be well known. I don’t want to get swayed by the highs and lows of the industry.”
Aamir , a thriller directed by Raj Kumar Gupta, was one of Rajeev’s biggest hits. He says that his role there helped him to play the character of Armin Salem in Fever . “In Aamir , a lot had to be spoken through the eyes. I had to convince the audience through my eyes and body language. It was a training ground for me. In Fever too, I didn’t have too many lines. And it was a challenge to express the role through hardly any dialogues.”
Rajeev says he didn’t watch any reference films to prepare for his role. “ Fever is an original film. There is no similarity with other thriller films like The Bourne Identity . We did do a workshop, where the director explained the film to us.”
The director Rajeev Jhaveri initially approached Rajeev for another film. “The first script was quite ambitious. He came back six months later with Fever , and I said yes. Jhaveri and I get along well. He is an ex-Army guy. I am an Army kid and my brother’s in the Army as well.”
