Known for playing strong antagonists in Bollywood and south Indian films, along with doing Odia, Punjabi, Bengali and Bhojpuri films, Rahul Dev is in an interesting phase of his career. Rahul, who was in Ahmedabad recently, says, “I tried breaking my image as a villain in films by doing other characters, but I was always offered negative roles. Now, thanks to OTT, I am exploring so many other genres and characters. I am enjoying myself more. Bahot real content pe kaam karne ko mil raha hai, which I was seeking for a while.”

He adds, “I now believe in doing roles which make me happy instead of focusing on what makes others happy. By God’s grace, I am not in a position where I have to work to sustain. I am grateful for the work I am getting across mediums and languages.”

Before he got into films, Rahul was a top model. He says, “I was enjoying modelling when I got a call in the ’90s from Mukul Anand for Dus. I was supposed to be the negative lead opposite Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt. However, the film got shelved halfway (after Mukul Anand passed away). In 2000, my journey in films began with Champion, where I played an antagonist.”

Asked about getting typecast as a villain, he says, “In those days, being typecast was very easy. I played the villain in almost every film and was doing well. Playing a negative character puts you in a larger-than-life situation, where you have big guns, or you are riding a horse or own a chopper. For a middle-class man from Delhi, these were new experiences. I even tried doing positive characters in films like Kyon? and 88 Antop Hill, but people called them art films. Those were the days of commercial cinema, and I accepted getting typecast. I tried making each character impactful.”

Rahul lost his wife Rina to cancer in 2009 and has been a single parent since then. He says, “It was a very sudden change for me, and I didn’t get time to cope with it. While I didn’t take up new projects, I was busy with completing the ongoing projects till 2011. I moved to Delhi with my son, where I donned the role of single parent. It was challenging and I was working in the gyms that I owned in Delhi. In 2013, my guru asked me to get back to films. After that, there was no looking back.”