Mr Congeniality

The actor is just back from the shooting schedule of Joker in Ooty,a film which releases in the second half of the year. The film,directed by debutant Vikram Tuli,will be his second release in 2010 after Peter Gaya Kaam Se,directed by another newcomer John Owen. “People mostly wonder why I only work with newcomers. It’s simple: I’m not gripped with insecurity. All these directors have kept these scripts with them for years. Imagine how passionate they are about their work,” states the dishy actor,who will play the role of a bike rider in Peter,which will hit the theatres after IPL 3,and a doting father to a five-year-old in Joker. In June,he starts shooting for Ehsan Hyder’s Taiynaat.

Like thousands of youngsters,Khandelwal landed in Mumbai almost eight years ago to become an actor. “I came to Mumbai with the intention of becoming an actor—a dream I cherished from the time I was in Class V,” says the actor,whose first break came with a comb ad for a local cable TV network. “I got paid Rs 5,000,” he smiles. Looking outside the window dreamily,he points to the traffic which has multiplied 10-fold since the time he first stepped into Mumbai.

His face lights up while narrating anecdotes of his early days in Mumbai. And the mention of Sujal,the character from Kahiin To Hoga,makes him smile even today. “I am still trying to crack the Sujal code. What was it about the character that makes people still refer to me with that name?” he ponders. But his latest moniker is Sach Ka Saamna. “People in Ooty kept calling me that,” he says of his reality show which created a stir across the nation. “I was happy to be discussed in Parliament,” he laughs.

His anecdotes are not over without making a mention of his namesake in the industry,filmmaker Rajeev Khandelwal. “He is a veteran filmmaker and he made my life miserable in Delhi when I was making documentaries. Most journalists would come to me for an interview and then be disappointed.” But Khandelwal seems to have taken his revenge now. “He now counsels teenage girls who call him to profess their love for me,” he states and he tells us that all these instances will be great fodder for his autobiography which he will pen down soon. “Apart from this,I would also like to direct a film some day. After all,you have just one life. You need to make the most of it.”

Cinema Scope
* Shashi Kapoor
* Amitabh Bachchan
* Kishore Kumar
* Lata Mangeshkar
* Yash Chopra

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