When Emraan Hashmi bumped into Mallika Sherawat at a recent event and posed for the shutterbugs with her, that moment took people back to their Murder (2004) days. Back then, Emraan was known for a very different kind of cinema, which he has clearly steered away from for years now. The actor featured in films like Aashiq Banaya Aapne (2005) and Aksar (2006) among others, that gave him the tag of being Bollywood’s serial kisser.

We asked Emraan if he’d ever want to venture into that genre of films again and he replied, “Never! I don’t see myself doing that anymore.”

Earlier this year, the Selfiee actor posted his shirtless picture on Instagram, something which he rarely does. Talking about it, he said, “It was one of those mandatory things that you have to do today on social media because everyone is doing it. There’s some amount of FOMO and insecurity where you wonder… as an actor am I lagging in that area? So, you go ahead and say, let me also show some abs. The audience out there is hyper voyeuristic right now and there is only so much you can show by flaunting different outfits. That was the idea behind putting up a shirtless picture.”

He cites an example of his last year’s release Tiger 3 where as an antagonist he was pitted against Salman Khan in the Maneesh Sharma directorial. He shares, “People have had this yearning (of seeing him shirtless) and this came across funnily at the time of Tiger 3’s release. People imagined and hoped that there will be a shirtless scene between me and Salman in the climax. So, they had already made up a film in their head. Hence, I guess people were a little disappointed (laughs). So that’s when I thought let me give them a peek on social media then.”