Upala KBR (DNA; May 31, 2017)

Arjun Kapoor’s choice in films is more spontaneous than formulaic. The actor, a persistent risk-taker, has consistently bucked the trend and gone for the less-expected option. Sometimes, this has worked to his advantage, sometimes, it has not. The actor has done films in several genres, but never in a particular one. We’ll tell you which one a little later...

Know how one genre works at the box-office and everyone wants to make the same kind of films? At any given time in the past few years, pick up any genre — woman-centric, biopics, action-drama, slice-of-life, based-on-true-stories, etc — and you’ll notice that there’s a me-too melee to the method.

Take biopics for example. Girls of the current generation are considering it. Shraddha Kapoor is playing Dawood Ibrahim’s sister Haseena Parkar in Haseena Queen of Mumbai and badminton star Saina Nehwal in her upcoming biopic, Sonam Kapoor played Neerja Bhanot in Neerja, Nargis Fakhri played a character inspired by Sangeeta Bijlani in Azhar, while Disha Patani played MS Dhoni’s girlfriend in the Dhoni biopic.

With the boys, however, it’s a different story. Save for Ranbir Kapoor (the upcoming Sanjay Dutt biopic and Sushant Singh Rajput (M S Dhoni - The Untold Story), his colleagues like Varun Dhawan, Sidharth Malhotra, Ranveer Singh, have kept away from playing real characters on screen.

Obviously, we’re sure Arjun was offered one at some point. He admits, “I have been offered a couple in the past, but didn’t do them for various reasons. Some offers come because something is in vogue, but there is no thought behind it. There are various conversations which happen, which I don’t entertain them beyond being dignified to meet the person or read it out for the sake of it because you sometimes know that the intent is not there.”

When questioned about the kind of roles he’d like working on, he says, “More than a biopic, I would like to play a fictional character in a real situation — like Forrest Gump. He’s a fictional character but the plot point of the film deals with real incidents that happened in the past. That fascinates me. Or like A Curious Case Of Benjamin Button.” He concludes, “I am not saying that I won’t do a biopic, but it has to excite me beyond a point.”