‘A CRORE? I CHARGE MORE’

From a Bengali professor in The Namesake to a Tamil tea vendor in Mumbai Meri Jaan—how do you manage the variety?
I didn’t have the time to do any research to play the vendor. The character was originally planned as a Hindi-speaking person. It was my idea to make him a south Indian so that I could layer my performance with something new in another “poor man” character. These nuances are always in your head if you are an observant person. You just have to access those recorded files and perform.

Which has been your most satisfying performance?
Special films are those that have something to cherish like The Warrior, Haasil, Maqbool, Charas, Metro, The Namesake and perhaps Mumbai Meri Jaan. These are films I would like to own and watch again and again. I like to explore and do new things. Even if I repeat a character profile, my audience should still expect something new out of it. For instance, my character in Life in a Metro wasn’t anyone new. But the way he unfolds from a blunt, uncouth person to someone you start liking is what makes him unique.

What are your future projects?
Dil Kabaddi, inspired by a Woody Allen film, provides another perspective to lives in a metro city. It has a very Indian soul and explores the function of morality in the mind of an urban married man. How does one cope with fantasies in spite of being happily married? How do couples cope with sexual tensions in a metro which provides ample opportunities for a man and a woman to succumb to their desires? Then, in Billo Barber, I play the protagonist—a multi-faceted character whom some see as honest and others as a liar. He is poor but not bogged down by poverty. He goes about his calling of a barber in a small town till a star lands there to shoot and changes his life.

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