 Bollywood, what made you think that you wanted to be in films? Well, I grew up in a joint family in Gurgaon and then there was this Richelina house that every weekend we would watch three to four films together as a family. And since I must be like 12, 13 at that time and I just fell in love with the whole world of films and actors and at that time as a kid I used to think these actors are not from this planet. There's some surreal people and they must be living this dream life and I thought I want to be with these people. I want to be this guy who's watching on screen right now and that's where I think that the seat got planted inside me that I want to be a film actor and I started working towards that. I started doing theatre in my school then during my graduation I studied from DU AISD College. I was doing theatre there then I joined another repertory company in Delhi and then I went to my film school in Pune, AFTI, I did my acting course there. But the only thing I never wanted to chase anything else apart from just the pure craft. You know I never wanted to be an actor because I wanted fame or money or anything else. These are all byproducts. For me it's about genuinely loving what you do and that's what I followed and that's where the film school training also helped me a lot in giving me a better understanding of acting. Because before that you know we all were, I was growing up watching a lot of Hindi films and for me actors were as I said they were like you have to look good, you have to say your dialogues heavily and that's it, you're sorted, you're an actor. But it's way more than that, it's for now it's actually quite meditative for me to be an actor and this is what gives me the most amount of happiness just to be on a film set. Sure. I mean since you mentioned that you wanted to be an actor when you're 12 or 13 you really think of acting you know as song and dance and love stories. But you've never done those conventional roles on the big screen. You've actually taken very bold and quirky roles and you know you've been very creative how you've done them. So what was your reason of actually, if I could say the word you know, offbeat roles in your film career? Well there are two things. Before my film school I also wanted to just do song and dance but I think when the moment I got exposed to international cinema and actors like Daniel Day-Lewis and De Niro's and Rosha Mons and Kurosawa's of the world I realized that no it's not about only what I was thinking that it was. It was way more than that. And also when you go to Bombay you know it's not especially being an outsider it's not like you can't choose that I'm going to decide this film I'm going to start my career with. You're just looking for opportunities. You're looking for that first film to happen. In my case it happened with LSD Love, Sex or Dhoka produced by Iqta and directed by Devakar Banerjee. And that was my only chance. That was my only platform to showcase my talent, showcase my work to the world. And I'm very glad I did that film because of course now it became a cult. That film it was a revolution. It was the first digital film of our country. And a lot of people took notice of my work in that film, Svishti Anrakshava, Anrakshar. He saw me in that film. He called me. He gave me another film called Gang Sabar Sabar. From Gang Sabar Sabar he mentioned it to Hansel Sir, Hansel Mehta that he should meet this guy for Shahid. So I think it was all connected. So I'm just happy that my career started with a film like LSD so that I could do more films like that, do more realistic films and films that I believe in and I really personally enjoy being a part of. Sure. And it's also well known that you work with a lot of first-time directors yourself. It's always a huge risk when you're a big actor. But you nevertheless go ahead and take those risks. You know, I mean a lot of us out here are actually from the business space. We take a lot of risks ourselves. So you know, how does it feel? I mean, you know, what is your sense? How do you tell yourself that, okay, no, I'm going to go ahead with it? And you know, then you decide to give it all your best and then together between you and your director, you're able to put off a hit film. So you know, how does that work for you? It's exactly like what you said. You have to go, once you say yes to it, you have to go all out and then you can't go half-heartedly and thinking that, okay, let me try. But then you're like co-founders really, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. But I always, I believe in energies a lot. Like I spend a lot of time with my directors and if I, before saying yes to it, if I like the energy of that person, if I see that he's also visualizing the film the way I'm seeing it in my mind and we both are on the same, you know, stage, then I say yes to it. But the moment I feel that, you know, he's maybe, he's seeing it from a very different point of view. He wants to make it like a really masala, though it's not meant to be a really masala entertainer, but he wants to make it because he wants to 100 crores. If that is the motivation, then I'll have my doubts. But if somebody just wants to make it because he wants to have fun, he wants to really want to tell this story, that's the cue for me to say yes to it. And it, most of the time, it has paid off in my favor. Like, you know, Amar Kaushik who made Street, that was his first film. And I remember meeting him for the first time. And I really liked the guy. I thought he's so amazing, he's so funny. And there's so much, there's so much, I think there was a lot of synergy in that room. And me, Amar, Dinesh, Vijay and our producer, we were sitting in that room. And I thought, this experience, this process is going to be a lot of fun just to work with Amar for two months on Street. And that's exactly what happened. You know, when the whole team is synchronized, the whole motivation is to tell a good story in the best way possible and not thinking about anything else, it shows in your work. I've seen that in my field. Once you're having fun and you're really happy about it, it starts showing on your work. And that's what happened with Street. When you see Street, you're enjoying the film because we as actors, as makers, we're also enjoying it so much. Sure. And you know, when today we are in the digital age and we see a lot of digital channels coming in and movies actually being made specially for digital channels. Do you see yourself being a part of that? Do you see yourself doing series in the coming times? Or, you know, maybe even experimenting with the, let's say, a foreign cinema of Chinese entertainment or maybe, I don't know, Turkish entertainment. We're actually coming down to like one entertainment focus and I think YouTube has done that for us. So do you see yourself getting into bigger and better or maybe even a production site? I would love to. I would love to explore my boundaries. I can't announce it on stage, but there's something happening very soon with this international film company and international director. I can't name it right now. But yeah, I'm doing that. Sorry. And series, yeah, I would love to be a... I'm a big fan of a lot of series. I do watch a lot of series in my free time. And if something great comes my way, I would definitely grab that opportunity because I think there's no difference now. You know, be it a feature film or be it a great series. Like we all watch Narcos and Game of Thrones and Deli Crime. And we talk about them in the same fashion as we talk about feature films. So I don't see any difference, especially now. I think it's everybody has easy access to digital platforms. So I would love to explore that boundary as well, yes. And production? Eventually, yeah, I think that's my plan. I would love to produce one day. I would also love to be like entrepreneur, like you guys, though I know it's... It is a lot of risk, but I think there's no fun without risk in life. You have to take your chances. And how do you sort of reinvent yourself when you get into different roles? You know, one role, we've seen your movies and we've seen that one role and the other role, they don't have like similarities. You know, it's easy when you're a romantic star, you're probably doing romance all across. But when you're doing cult roles like the way you do, it requires a different mindset altogether. So how do you reinvent? How do you tell yourself? I mean, right from your physical appearance to how you sort of in your mind mentally prepare yourself to get into a newer role? Well, most of the time it is already there in the script. I think the script tells you the way you're seeing the character. But I tend to add a lot of things from my side. Like, for instance in Newton, I thought that the curls in my hair you see and that little twitch that you see in my eyes was my idea. But Amit was kind enough to agree to that. Like the way Vicky says, we keep lead in three, that was something which came just from like, thought I thought that that's how we should say it. So I think as an actor, I tend to improvise a lot. I tend to give it my own touch. And especially now, because I've been working nonstop and so many films are coming, especially now it's way more challenging because I don't want you people to think that, you know, oh, Raj is doing the same thing. We have seen this performance earlier. So I'm genuinely consciously trying to do everything different from each other. That when you see one performance, I'm doing another horror comedy right now called Ruhi Afzah with Janvi and Varun. We're shooting in Agra actually. And it's another horror comedy after three and I know people would compare and people would say, okay, no, but we have seen that. So I've added a lot of things. I'm making it more challenging for myself. But that's the fun, I think, of being an actor. When you surprise yourself, when you surprise your audience and, you know, that's the way I see it. If you keep doing the same thing all your life, it gets very boring, I think, for both the parties. You know, I mean, for entrepreneurship and even in the movie, in the entertainment industry, failures, they come, I mean, you know, you have to live with them. So what are the failures that you probably, you know, you rationally remember that, you know, they were formative in what you are today. And what did you learn from them? Which gave you a sense that, you know, now, because I have been through this, because I have, you know, this has happened to me, it was no road, it was better. What did you learn from your mistakes? I think mistakes are very important. It should make them, then only, I think, I feel you can grow in life. There are a couple of films I've done. I think, mostly, maybe two I can remember right now. I won't name them, though, but yeah. Those are the films I thought that I probably shouldn't have done. And I'm not equally proud of those films. They're still in my filmography, and they would always be there. From my mistake that I should only do films or I should only do the kind of work that my heart really says yes to. And these two were the only films where my heart was not saying yes, but I did for other reasons, for some emotional attachments to the makers. But I think you should, I learned my lesson. It doesn't work in your favor. If it doesn't come from your heart, if you don't really feel excited about it, you should really don't go for it. Now, how do you keep professional and emotional side apart? Because, you know, it gets harder when you go on the job because then you have so many people you're thankful to and there's so many commitments that would come just for emotional reasons. So how do you now segregate? So now I have pretty more work than what I had earlier. So now dates are a great excuse, I think. So now I can just say, which genuinely is also an issue right now. But dates, or sometimes, now actually, I try and be honest. It happened in the past couple of months where I just went up to the person and told them, listen, I really don't see myself in it. And you know, I'm sure you want me to be there, but I won't come like wholeheartedly. And I don't want to do something where I'm not fully involved. It won't really help either of us. So what is it that you've learned from the entertainment industry? Ten years down the line, how do you see yourself doing something different in the industry than what you're doing now? Ten years down the line, actually... I'm not futuristic at all. I don't really plan my life as such. I try and live in the moment in acting and in life. But if you ask me, I would say, yeah, I would love to produce more film. I would love to produce great content. I would love to tell stories that, you know, you guys will feel excited about and would go and probably try and change a few things about the cinema. Maybe the language of films that we use in our films, in the cinema. And something new, something that probably we haven't seen earlier. Maybe a love story that the way we have not seen earlier. That would be nice. You know, so it's now becoming quite sort of symbiotic in the industry that, you know, because you have such a huge celebrity image, you can partner today with a young startup. And because of that and something you believe in and something that you're passionate about, and you can actually be partners or co-founders, as I said, together and make that business bigger. So do you see yourself doing that at some point of time? Yeah, if anybody's out there who's ready to partner with me, I'm very open with the idea. Yes, I'm very open with the idea. I think there's some great points out there and there's so many amazing startups happening. I keep a tab of some of them, but yeah, I'm very open to the idea of, you know, going in a partnership with some amazing startup.