He charmed us with his endearing simplicity in Rang De Basanti and his cooking skills in Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana. The 39-year-old actor, Kunal Kapoor, is now all set to woo us with his role in Dear Zindagi, sharing screen space with Alia Bhatt and Shah Rukh Khan. “It’s not the sort of film that you get a chance to be part of every day. It’s so personal and intimate. And that’s because Gauri (Shinde) has such a deep affection for the characters she has written, and a real understanding about them and the relationships they share. I think everyone will find something that they can relate with,” says the Mumbai-based actor.
Kapoor, who will be seen romancing Bhatt in the film, says that the actress is a unique and natural performer, and more mature than her age. Talking about his character in the film, Kapoor shares, “I play a character called Raghuvender, who is an ad film producer. He is successful, charming, funny, and like a lot of us, finds himself in an ‘it’s complicated’ sort of relationship.” The actor, who has two more films coming up, Veeram, a trilingual (Malayalam, Hindi and English) adaptation of Macbeth, directed by Jayaraj, and Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Raagdesh, also shares a light moment from the sets of Dear Zindagi. “I remember, one day, we were shooting in Singapore. The weather there is unpredictable and it randomly started raining. We started playing antaakshari and only with songs that had the word baarish or rain in it,” he says, with a laugh.
The Aaja Nachle actor says that to become “physically intimidating” for his anti-hero character in Veeram was a big challenge for him. “I have always been a pretty lean chap. So, it was pretty much a full day dedicated to getting fit and working on martial arts. Once you get into filming, it is a whole new challenge, because then you’ve got to push yourself to get to the gym, sometimes after 18 hours of shoots,” shares Kapoor. An aspiring writer, the actor is also currently working on four scripts.
Talking about his next film with Dhulia, Kapoor says, “Raagdesh has a powerful script. Possibly the most powerful script I’ve read since RDB (Rang De Basanti). We have all heard about the Indian National Army, but this script made me see how significant their contribution was.”
Dear Zindagi releases on November 25.