Chaya Unnikrishnan (DNA; January 19, 2019)

Sidharth Malhotra, who turned 34 on January 16, celebrated his birthday by walking the ramp for his friend, designer Rohit Bal, whom he has known since his college days in New Delhi. The actor, who wore a pleated tunic teamed with an angarkha, said he couldn’t have asked for a better birthday gift.

Speaking to us on the sidelines of Blenders Pride Fashion Tour, the good-looking star threw light on his upcoming films and the change in his approach towards picking up scripts.

Going back to his roots
Last year was not so great for Sidharth, who had only one release, Aiyaary, which was a tepid fare at the box office. But he has a lot to look forward to in 2019. He has two films lined up this year, Jabariya Jodi that reunites him with his Hasee Toh Phasee (2014) co-star Parineeti Chopra and Marjaavaan, which will see him sharing screen space with Riteish Deshmukh again after Ek Villain (2014). Post that, the Delhi boy starts work on the Vikram Batra biopic, which has him essaying the role of the Kargil war hero.

“Yes, there are a lot of exciting things happening this year. I have new films and new characters to essay. In Jabariya Jodi, I play a Patna boy, a flamboyant and colourful character, while Marjaavaan is a larger-than-life actioner in which I sport a completely different look. It’s a fresh zone for me,” says Sidharth.

For his role in Jabariya Jodi, the actor had to prep a lot to get the accent right. “I am not speaking Bhojpuri or Maithili, it’s Patna ki Hindi. While doing that, I realised there is so much history in that state — many poets have come out from there, it’s culturally rich. I was familiar with that Hindi since I am from Delhi and we speak so much of the language at home. It is close to Bihar and UP where this kind of slang is spoken. I will explore this zone again as I am going back to my roots and playing a desi boy, which I haven’t done so far,” he enthuses.

Title tattle
Interestingly, it was Sidharth, who came up with the title of Jabariya Jodi. Ask him where he found it and he replies, “Oddly it was while doing workshops for learning the Patna slang that I got the title. They use a lot of slangs and stretch their words like ‘badhiya hai bhaiyya’. Jabariya is not a word, it’s a slang. Jabar cheez means fantastic and jabariya can mean jabar as well as forceful. I just felt it’s fun and interesting enough to put it in a title.”

The film revolves around pakadwa vivah — kidnapping the groom and forcefully getting him married.

In action mode
While Sidharth is not new to the genre, having done Ek Villain and Brothers earlier, he tells us that in Marjaavaan, it’s a different kind of maara-mari. “I’ve always done action — my first was Ek Villain, Brothers was more intense, then came A Gentleman; and now this. I grew up watching actioners whether they were Amitabh Bachchan’s movies from the ’70s or that of Sunny Deol and Sanjay Dutt in the ’90s. I enjoyed seeing them and doing them as well. In Marjaavaan, we will explore a new kind of action, which is larger-than-life and in the massy zone,” says the former model.

Going massy
With his last couple of releases — Aiyaary and A Gentleman —  not faring well at the box office, looks like the 34-year-old actor has decided to have a different approach in picking up scripts. He wants his movies to be massy entertainers. “The common thread between Jabariya Jodi, Marjaavan and the Vikram Batra biopic is that these are not small in terms of concept or writing, they will work pan-India. They have enough entertaining elements to cater to everyone in the family — kids, mother, father, wife and husband,” he states.

About his earlier projects, too, the actor shares that he has always tried to choose scripts that are well written. “Some work, some don’t, nobody can predict that Friday. But my attempt is to do new things. I have never repeated a character or film in my career, I will continue to do the same thing, but the way the scripts are written or approached will be for a larger audience. That’s the new change — like Jabariya Jodi with a concept but flamboyant and entertaining, Marjaavaan; with Riteish and me coming back but the action and love story is in the massy zone and Vikram Batra, an India-based story, which I hope caters to everyone,” he signs off.