~*Sushant's Bollywood Journey*~ #14 - Page 72

• By R.M. Vijayakar, Special to India-West


• Sep 02, 2013

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• MUMBAI, India
  

  Sushant Singh Rajput is the latest newbie to transition from the small to the big screen. After delivering better than the other boys (Amit Sadh and Rajkumar Yadav) in "Kai Po Che!" in early 2013, he is now the sole leading man of Yash Raj Films' love story with a difference, "Shuddh Desi Romance."

  Meeting Rajput at Yash Raj Studios (though he is a bit under the weather due to the frantic promotional spree) finds the actor very happy about working with Yash Raj, and fully geared up for the responsibility of a solo lead in a YRF enterprise.

  He never aspired to be in films and it was the package of UTV, Abhishek Kapoor and the script that made him take on his debut film. "I was only auditioned for the role I played in Kai Po Che!,'" he smiles.

  "But if given a choice from the three roles, I would do the same role again. I have this inability to express myself in front of several people still, though luckily this does not happen in front of either an audience or the camera. When I quit television, it was to do a filmmaking course abroad," he says.

  While actors are actors are actors, Rajput does feel that film actors are bigger than their small-screen counterparts. "There are minor technical differences " on television, there are extreme close-ups, work is fast and when you are on a reality show, everything is live and you are playing yourself," he notes. "You have to convince yourself to prepare and research, and everything works right when the script and co-star are right."

  Rajput notes that the problem with television today is content, which is not only illogical but stretched and repetitious. "For an actor, though, it is easy and great money and you can get famous quickly. I quit Pavitra Rishta' because things were getting too monotonous," says the actor.

  "Shuddh Desi Romance," he says, is a real, unconventional, quirky and intelligent love story. "You can feel that the characters are one of us. There is no escapism." He refutes the concept that drama and audience gratification are not there when the story is real. "The film is about infatuation and love, conflicts within relationships and societal protocols and hypocrisy," he says. "When real emotions come in, and real issues, there is definitely going to be drama. Here the Western concept of living-in is explored in a romance."

  Songs, being unreal, were difficult for him at first. But he soon got into a comfort zone with them. Though Rajput prefers realistic films, heightening emotions in a larger-than-life way is also good as the audience, he concedes, loves such films.

  His next two films, Kapoor's "Fitoor" and Dibakar Banerjee's "Byomkesh," are his kind though. Fascinated by the latter film, which has gone on the sets, he says that he was intrigued by Bengal's most famous fictional detective that he plays. "Here is a man who has no secure job. He has a different wiring from all of us," he says. "I am thrilled that Dibakar has chosen me. I personally lay more importance on substantial work rather than commercial success."

  Rajput has also found his soul mate in Ankita Lokhande, his "Pavitra Rishta" co-star. However, he is a tad upset about her not being chosen as the heroine of a big forthcoming film. "There are reservations against television actors," he says.

  A prestige conquest is Rajkumar Hirani's "Peekay," but he would rather not talk about that role. "I do not know whether I am supposed to reveal anything about the film," he smiles.

  Below are other television talents besides Rajput who have played leads in Hindi films:

  Aamna Sharif 

  Amarr Upadhyay 

  Amit Sadh

  Anita Hassnandani (Natassha)

  Karishma Tanna

  Masumeh

  Prachi Desai 

  Smita Patil (newsreader)

  Shah Rukh Khan

  Vidya Balan

Sushant Singh Rajput, Parineeti Chopra will not promote Shuddh Desi Romance in Patna?