Varun Dhawan wants to challenge his stereotypical romantic image with his forthcoming action thriller Badlapur. He chats with Divya Kaushik about the many choices that young actors have in Bollywood today
Arjun Kapoor did Finding Fanny, Siddharth Malhotra did Ek Villain and here’s Varun Dhawan in an intense avatar in Badlapur. Many may believe that it is a conscious effort on the actor’s part to shed the romantic, “chocolaty” image but Varun says that it is no conscious effort andBadlapur, too, is a romantic story of a different kind. “It is a different kind of story and the most challenging role for me so far. I had to be in the character throughout, while shooting for it.
After Student of the Year I rejected many scripts because I wanted to maintain a variety in my work. Every character that I have done so far is a different one. But in Badlapur, the role is different in terms of being dark and edgy. When I told my family that I will be doing this film, they were scared as they were not sure if I will be able to scare the audience as Raghu. He is everything that I am not in my real life,” he says.
Varun believes that it is a privilege for actors of his generation to have variety of options to choose from. “As far as I am concerned I am a rebel with a cause. There is no method to my madness but I am just mad to play new characters. So far I am lucky that I have got to work with seasoned directors and producers and have got to play the roles I really liked, but in future I will be very much willing to opt for an unconventional script even if it is coming from some new director,” he adds.
Working with a seasoned actor like Nawazuddin Siddiqui was another factor that inspired him to do the film. “As an actor I was as excited to meet him as Robert De Niro. But when I shot with him for the first time, I was little intimidated but soon everything settled down,” he says.
Badlapur is a revenge drama and the Censor Board recently cleared the film without any major cuts but the use of the ‘F’ was not allowed in the film. “Since I have grown watching films and as part of this industry, Censor Board is not new to me.
I have seen my father dealing with it many times. But I feel that when people criticise Censor Board they are criticising a wrong set of people, who are just doing their jobs. The major decisions are taken by the I&B ministry and these guys are just implementing those. So if we feel that something is wrong with the directives, the film industry as a unified body should approach the ministry and put their point forward on why they think a certain thing should be allowed as the audience is mature now to accept that.
We have to collectively take the initiative,” he says. On the recent controversy related to AIB roast show, Varun says that it is high time we should stop discussing it. “We must not discuss it anymore because there are more important things happening and let’s not give those people more importance. It is a very small subject. Discuss the rapes, corruption and other things that need attention,” he says.