Mr Goody Two-Shoes now steps into alien territory with a twisted love story
Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 27, 2015)

For seven years, Karan Virani was a household name as Ekta Kapoor's long running soap, Kyunki.... Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, held the country in its thrall. After portraying several positive roles on TV, the actor, Hiten Tejwani, will turn bad in Vikram Bhatt's upcoming film, Love Games.

"I've wanted to experiment with something different for a while now and was both surprised and happy to be considered for a negative role in this stylish and twisted film," says the actor.

The 41-year-old actor, who is doing two TV shows back home, is presently in Cape Town on a 22-day-schedule for the film. "I will finish my shoot here, then return to TV. Cape Town is beautiful but too far to shuttle between," he reasons. Bring up the subject of his appearence and Hiten points out that it's a no make-up look. "I did a workshop with Bhatt saab (Mahesh Bhatt) before we left to get into the psyche of the character. And before you ask, no, I'm not playing a psychotic. Gaurav is seemingly the bad guy. It's a twisted story so one doesn't really know who is good and bad. Love games, as they say," laughs Hiten.

His recently released film, Thoda Lutf Thoda Ishq, didn't fare well. Disappointed? "A little, but I was happy it finally released. There are so many films still in the cans. But I'll try and choose better roles in future," says Hiten, who, after Love Games will return to Pranav Singh's Zainab, which is based on a real-life incident.

Now that he's turned bad on the big screen, will he play negative roles on TV too? "It wasn't a conscious decision to pick only positive roles. Things just fell into place. I won't mind playing a baddie if the character is exciting."