‘I cannot point out only one good thing about Lara’

“My instant reaction was to start dancing,” he says,laughing. “But seriously speaking,I was tickled when the director,Sushant Shah told me that Lara,who plays the super-rich and hoity-toity Mahika in the film had agreed to star opposite me.”

And the actor,who plays Manu Gupta, an uncouth cloth trader who is thrown into Mahika’s company when both are forced to travel together from Jaipur to Delhi,was floored by the former Miss Universe during the 35 days of shoot. “I cannot point out one good thing about her,because there are several. She’s well-travelled,well-read,well-spoken and a very exciting personality. She brought in many elements as an actress and as a producer to Chalo Dilli. The film was completed within a span of one year,which says a lot about her professionalism,” rattles off the actor.

On his end,Vinay,who had to pile on 12 kilos to play the portly Manu,is happy that he managed to impress the actress not only with his acting abilities but also his culinary skills and his nose for good food. “After the day’s shoot I would goad her and other people of our team to check out the local cuisine. One day we all drove 65 kilometres to grab some malpuas. It was okay for me as I had to be plump but Lara would curse me after slurping on the food,” he says.

Besides Chalo Dilli, which he’s sure will capture the imagination of the audience,the actor’s other all-time favourite comedy film is the ‘60s Sunil Dutt-Saira Banu starrer,Padosan. “The scene in which Duttsaab surreptitiously follows Saira Banu from her house to a garden was extremely funny and is still entrenched in my mind,” he says,adding that today it is director Rajkumar Hirani whose storytelling has a unique cutting-edge to it.

As for his other forthcoming film,Bheja Fry 2 in which he plays the loser,Bharat Bhushan, he says that everything else about the film,including the star-cast has changed from the original Bheja Fry. “It’s only me and my irritating one liners that are carried forward in the sequel.”

Like his character got lucky in Chalo Dilli where he lands up with Lara as company when he misses his train,has that happened to him in real life?

“I have missed several flights and trains,because I never wake up on time! But unfortunately I never got the opportunity to latch on to a girl as beautiful as Lara,like I did in the film,” he says with a sigh.