Was it the sports theme of the film that attracted you to Hook Ya Crook?

When UTV gave me the script, it was so amazing that I freaked out. I play Vijay Pradhan, who lands up in jail. All the prisoners love cricket so he forms a cricket team and the story is about how two prison gangs get even with each other. When they told me that David Dhawan would be directing it, I immediately accepted the film as I had never worked with him before.

How was it working with him?

Awesome; he’s always smiling and is like the sun giving solar energy to the world. He’s the driving force behind all of us actors.

The film has an ensemble cast and they all call you ‘guru’.

It has a great ensemble cast. There is Shreyas Talpade who is an astounding actor, Krishna Abhishek, Kay Kay Menon who understands cinema so well and, of course, Genelia D’Souza. The first thing I asked for when I came here was a treadmill, mats and a Swiss ball, so I don’t miss out on my workouts. Soon, everybody joined in. Since I started dishing out tips on fitness and diet, I became their guru.

Besides Mr Lad, Robin Sharma’s coach, you also trained in cricket with Mahendra Singh Dhoni. How was the experience?

He’s the world’s best cricketer so it couldn’t get better than that. He told me that when you hit out at a ball pick up the bat like you would an axe to chop wood. I value this piece of advice.

... contd.