Ranveer Singh: I have a raging libido

But Ranveer Singh is not known for either coyness or political correctness. His Jaguar is numbered 6969, as was the bike his character — a man who ran an adult video parlour — rode in last year’s film, Goliyon Ki Rasleela-Ram-Leela. As the brand ambassador for Durex, he is the first Hindi film star to represent a condom brand. During film promotions, he unabashedly flirts with his co-stars, their sexual chemistry out there for all to see. As explanation, Singh proffers more  theories about his hormone levels.

He has “above-normal testosterone levels but I  use it to the benefit of my performance,” he says, with a cocky smile.\

Ranveer Singh is at the gym in the Yash Raj Films office. His latest film, Shaad Ali’s Kill Dil, out of the way, he is now prepping for his character as Peshwa Bajirao, the 18th century Maratha ruler, in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s period film Bajirao Mastani. He is shirtless, his muscles taut as he works out. The presence of outsiders distracts, but doesn’t inhibit him. He grins and stretches further, showing off his sculpted abs. Women pause, flash a smile and an approving look before moving on. Singh revels in the attention. “I love it,” he says.

In a film industry where most actors are guarded about what they say and how they behave in public, Singh’s exuberance has won fans. For a dare posed to him by Hrithik Roshan ahead of the release of the latter’s film Bang Bang, Singh dressed up like the actor in Krrish, and danced to the song ‘Main aisa kyun hoon’ in the middle of a busy Bandra junction for unsuspecting bystanders. In hours, the YouTube video went viral.  The other dares, performed by Priyanka Chopra, Shah Rukh Khan and Farhan Akhtar, paled in comparison.

But he has also been dismissed as brash and attention-hungry. His energy can come off as too brazen, even annoying. Case in point is Kareena Kapoor, who dropped out of Bhansali’s Goliyon Ki Rasleela after Ranveer Singh’s effusive admission of a childhood crush on her in Koffee with Karan. But the 28-year-old is unfazed. “I have an inherent problem with words like decorum’, ‘protocol’, ‘formalities’ — these are all societal creations and I am far more primitive than that, I go by instinct,” he says.

His instinct as an actor has, so far, helped him in his six-film-old journey. So convincing was his performance in his debut film, ‘Band Baaja Baaraat’, as the can-do wedding planner Bittoo Sharma that people mistook him for a Delhi lad (the actor grew up in Bandra, Mumbai).

Ranveer Singh has since delivered hits in the action-drama ‘Gunday’ and ‘Ram-Leela’, Bhansali’s adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, with a cameo in Homi Adajania’s ‘Finding Fanny’. His restrained performance in ‘Lootera’ as a  brooding thief won him acclaim too. “He’s four years old in the industry, but a number of acclaimed filmmakers have already worked with him, be it Vikramaditya Motwane (Lootera), Zoya Akhtar (Dil Dhadakne Do, yet to release) or Bhansali,” says writer-filmmaker Habib Faisal, who wrote Band Baaja Baaraat. “That only indicates his range as an actor.”

In ‘Kill Dil’, which released this weekend, Ranveer Singh and Ali Zafar play touts working under local gangster Bhaiyyaji (Govinda in a comeback role). While Zafar’s character is of the level-headed, brooding guy, Singh is the reckless one, who wears his heart on his sleeve. Like in Kill Dil, several of the characters he plays seem an extension of Singh’s hyper-energetic self, be it the ladies’ man Ricky (Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl), an ardent lover of women and attention, or the brash Bikram in Gunday.

But how much is Ranveer the Riotous a careful marketing strategy? Those close to him deny any such thing. “Ranveer’s always been an extrovert,” says Karan Kapadia, Singh’s friend of 15 years. “His energy was always something else. After having partied all night, you would find him holding court at 6am, making people laugh, entertaining them.”

To take up acting was a natural choice. Singh took his time before taking the plunge. Born into an affluent business family, Singh grew up on Hindi cinema. Although distantly related to Anil Kapoor, he wasn’t part of the circle of “film kids”. While in the US for his undergraduate degree, he took up an acting course. That was the first step. But Singh believed he
didn’t stand a chance in the film industry and he joined O&M as a copywriter. “I grew up on the cinema of the 1990s. And when I returned from the US at the age of 21, the young crop were all star kids — Abhishek Bachchan, Tusshar Kapoor. I couldn’t have gone from modelling to acting either, as I lacked the looks,” says Singh, who was written off for his unconventional appearance.

But he wasn’t going to walk away without a shot at acting. After a stint in theatre and as an assistant director between 2007-08, Singh decided to “struggle it out”. After two years of auditioning, he bagged the role of Bittoo Sharma.

Faisal says he first saw Singh in an audition video that casting director Shanoo Sharma had shared with him and the film’s director Maneesh Sharma. Provided with a scene but not its context, Singh had performed his in terpretation of the character and excelled in it. But when Faisal first came face-to-face with the actor, he was taken aback. “He was dressed in yellow keds, red track pants, a ganji and a red cap. Even his clothes screamed ‘Give me attention!’. But his energy was  infectious.”

Faisal believes that one needs to shed a few prejudices to realise that Singh’s in-your-face energy isn’t an act. Perhaps, that’s finally starting to happen in the industry — where, for long, his link-ups with his co-stars, especially supposed girlfriend Deepika Padukone, overshadowed his work. Although he hadn’t admitted to a relationship, he was earlier vocal
about his proximity to Band Baaja Baaraat co-star Anushka Sharma and then Padukone. Today, he remains evasive on the subject of his love life. “I’ve learnt my lesson,” he says.

Singh agrees, though, that his peers are warmer to him now. “When I joined the industry, I was like Alice in Wonderland, all goggle-eyed by the stars I had grown up watching. I didn’t know what to say when I met them,” he says. The fanboy in Singh has not grown up.  Each of the three times Amitabh Bachchan passes by at YRF, the actor walks up to greet him and watches the veteran with his mouth agape. Motwane adds there is also a quiet, more sensitive side to Singh, which few get to see. “When that comes forth, you realise Ranveer’s over-zealous expression of fondness for a person is actually genuine concern and love for him/her,” he says.

If he is instinctive in personal life, as an actor Singh is methodical. Filmmakers say he preps intensively for his characters, sometimes for days ahead of a scene, analysing everything down to body language. While sometimes it helps Singh deliver a performance like Bittoo Sharma, Motwane feels the actor needs to let go a little more. “He will work himself into a
frenzy, which makes it difficult to change when you want to turn a scene around based on the moment’s spontaneity.”

The unwillingness to play safe is also evident in his fashion. Seen in floral print jackets, colourful suits and quirky accessories, Singh swings from dressing up in Boho chic to the dapper elegance of blacks, greys and blues. “It’s for my own amusement. I get bored looking the same every day,” says the actor, who seems to have modelled himself on his screen idol, Govinda. He insists he was always “fashionable”, even as a child.

“I got my ears pierced and hair done in a mohawk when I was in Class III. When others were dressing in regular denims, I was wearing jerseys and baggy pants, with my underwear peeping out.”

In his dressing room at YRF, he shows off his collection of shoes. There’s a pair in animal print, another in shiny silver. One pair has “Kill” painted in neon green and pink on top of one shoe and “Dil” atop the other. “That’s my custom-made pair,” he says. In his opinion, he’s made a fashion blooper only once, for Anupama Chopra’s talk show when Bachchan said he “looked like a tree”.

On a table is a selection of caps and hats. He has close to three dozen now, to conceal his latest bald look for Bajirao Mastani on orders from Bhansali. As he browses through to pick one, Singh twirls the spot of hair that’s been left unshaved. “I can spike this shendi, gel it up and it stands like an antenna,” he says, grinning. But his directors insist this excess is also what makes working with Singh a delight. He walks into the set with his boombox blaring the music that he feels will help him set the mood for the scene. He doesn’t mind giving take after retake until everyone is satisfied. “He’s a director’s actor; he’s malleable but will also question you till he is convinced,” says Kapadia, who directed Singh in the Durex ad. Singh says he picks a film because of the director, and the amount of risk each script promises. If the idea of
doing a film isn’t giving him jitters, it is not worth taking up.

But Singh needs to tread carefully hereon, selecting more versatile roles. Kapadia says he needs to play nuanced characters. Motwane suggests he balance his commercial films with a range of indie . “I’m in that phase right now where I am constantly thinking about the craft — the way I haven’t ever before — movement, voice modulation, eyes, expression. I can  see my life experiences influencing the way I perceive my characters. I suppose that’s what age and time do to an actor.”