Actor Shahid Kapoor has played brooding men before, but as O'Romeo releases today, he appears surprisingly at ease. Calm, measured, almost detached from the chaos his character brings to screen. Excerpts...

In spirit, I would say yes to the latter! But from a professional POV, no. I don’t think any artist can give themselves to something unless they connect with it. When the connection is not there, there is always something missing in the product. In O'Romeo, of course it’s the titular part; I play Ustraa. And with Vishal Bhardwaj, it’s always a world that he creates. Ustraa’s attitude is that of Romeo. If, as creative people, you don’t connect, it is wrong for you to do the film. If you won’t be honest, it is unfair for everybody else. I very much connected with this film. I had one preset in my head before I met him, and I was very clear that at this stage in my career, I don’t want to do a film that is too experimental or a film meant for a smaller, intellectual audience and not for a wider audience, who have a simpler mindset and whose approach to filmmaking is that they go to theatres to get entertained. There’s the cinema you love and the cinema that people love. The whole endeavour has been for years to find a Ganga-Jamuna moment between them, to meet a middle ground. This film is an attempt at achieving that; it’s meant for an intelligent audience but also very much like a typical, mass audience.

He has never chased trends, only trusted his own timing. From romance to rage, from comedy to drama, he has built a career on instinct and reinvention. Now in his 40s, he is calmer, more centred, shaped by fatherhood and a sharper understanding of self and cinema.

On the next episode of Rustomjee presents Bombay Times Lounge, Shahid Kapoor speaks with depth and candour – mapping his own journey, his relationship with self-critique, the curveballs life throws at us and what it means to be ahead of the curve. As he reunites with Vishal Bhardwaj for the fourth time in O'Romeo – a partnership that has always created magic – Shahid steps into a gangster’s world on screen, even as off-screen, he seems more at ease with himself than ever before. Here’s a sneak peek into the conversation – with the full episode coming soon on the Bombay Times YouTube channel. The promo drops today.

Talking about why he never compared his journey in films with his contemporaries, Shahid says, “Everyone’s journey is different; someone starts right next to the finish line because that’s what destiny gave them, and somebody starts like 200 meters before the start line. You start counting your meters from the place you started. You see your own journey and merit yourself with that. You can’t get so affected by what other people have achieved.”

Speaking about how social media is impacting actors’ skill set, he shares, “We used to learn acting in a film theatre, now people are learning acting by looking at their phones. You know there’s a fundamental difference in the way you view a movie on your phone and on the big screen. Sitting in a theatre, seeing a story being told and having a social experience with so many people around you – there is a huge difference. I think a lot of new-age actors need to go to the theatres; they need to watch purana cinema. They need to go to smaller towns to understand our country. What happens is, globalisation ke saath... duniya ka sab kuch pata hai, lekin rootedness nahin hai, and rooted emotions come from these experiences. Actors really need to think about that… get off social media, go discover the world, experience reality and then get back on it.”

Speaking about his creative bonding with Bhardwaj, the actor shares, "The funniest thing is that, even though Vishal (Bhardwaj) and I are collaborating after seven or eight years, for O'Romeo, it didn’t feel any different than it was before. It felt like a very natural flow of things. Of course, I can sense that he has also evolved, and I am also at a different stage of my career, but we’ve always had an unsaid creative understanding."

Reflecting on how fatherhood had shaped his perspective, on life and career, Shahid says, “Parenthood has changed me completely. I was just dying to be a papa. I wanted it so badly, and I was consumed by it. Now that my daughter’s nine and my son is seven, I’ve started thinking about myself much more. Till about a year back, I was just very absorbed with them. I am turning 45 very soon, and these are very important years in my career. This is a young person’s job, and to stay relevant for the newer generation, you have to really grow, evolve and adapt. Sometimes these roles that life gives you are so much bigger than any of these things. As a parent, you want to be the best version of yourself. I’m pretty obsessed with my kids, and it’s been amazing.”

On charting his own path, Shahid says, "There are three places you can be in your career: You can be ahead of the curve, you can be right at the curve, or you can be behind the curve. The one place I don’t want to be is behind the curve. And if you’re trying to do something that has already been done because it was successful, rest assured, you’re behind the curve. We have to learn to define our own pace. Puri zindagi nikaal doge sochne mein ki yeh trend hai, woh trend hai, toh maza nahin aayega. You can fail, but be original."

The Haider actor says if one wants to hone their craft, they have to be critical of their work. He adds, "I’ve learnt not to let negative chatter affect me in my head. I’ve worked very hard on myself to differentiate between what is critical and what is objective. And what is getting over critical and negative – there is a thin line there. To get better at what you do, you have to be critical, and if you get so affected by self-critique, then you’re not strong enough and you won’t progress."

Watch out for the full episode of the Rustomjee presents Bombay Times Lounge with Shahid Kapoor, coming soon on the Bombay Times YouTube channel

Title Sponsor: Rustomjee

Shot at Parishram by Rustomjee, Pali Hill, Bandra, Mumbai

In his recent stint in Jersey, Shahid Kapoor played the father of a school-going child, who sacrifices his life to keep the promise he made to his kid. As a father in real life, Shahid, who is a hands-on dad to Misha and Zain, believes that children follow what they see their parents doing. He also believes that it’s up to a parent to find a way for their kids to be happy and proud of their professional achievements.

Talking about how he keeps his kids in mind while making professional decisions, he says, “You want to do the right things and put the right message out for your children. When you give your time to something outside of your home, the first thought is, ‘Will my family be happy and proud of what I have done, sacrificing the time I could have spent with them? Will they stand up and say that dad we love what you do and we are proud and happy that you went and did it?’”

Shahid says, “I can do 10 films today that will do great numbers, but what if five years down the line, my kids ask me what I was thinking when I did those films. At that time, I can’t sit them down and tell them, ‘Beta tab yeh chalta tha’. More than me showing my children what I have done, I would be happy if they saw it themselves. I’d love it if my kids are able to connect with the characters I play.”

Shahid, who is expected to play a father yet again in the Hindi remake of the French film Nuit Blanche, being helmed by Ali Abbas Zafar, adds, “Beyond everything else, I want to be a dad to my kids. I really don’t care if they eventually don’t know what I do. That is not fundamental to me. When they are 20 or 25, if they want to come back home and spend time with me because they feel a void, it would partly be because I’m working on that today. That is important. So, at times, when I sacrifice my personal interests and give that time to my kids, I also do it from a selfish space, so that tomorrow they, too, make that choice. You can expect to get their attention and love when you have also worked towards it.”

Until recently, actor Shahid Kapoor wasn’t too active on social media, and would share his personal pics sparingly. However, in the last couple of months, he has changed drastically. From making reels to putting out random pictures with wife Mira Rajput Kapoor, he is going all out. And, as expected, it’s the Mira effect.

“She has been pulling my leg for the last couple of years: ‘Shahid, your social media game is so bad, it sucks, you are so boring’,” he shares, adding, “We were pretty much living in Punjab during the lockdowns. I was in a different headspace there... The minute I came to Mumbai, which was two months back, I thought, ‘Sweet revenge is coming, Mira’.”

While the 41-year-old admits that he does take social media seriously now, that still has not compelled him enough to upload pictures of his children, Misha (5) and Zain (3). Shahid is concerned about putting them in the public eye. “I consciously don’t post pictures of our kids on social media. There’s just one pic of Zain, maybe two, that I have put out, since he was born,” he says.

But how do his children react to his fame — people coming up to him for selfies when they step out or clicking their photos? The Jersey actor says it’s too early for the question. “They haven’t been here (in Mumbai) for two-and-a-half years. They have just about reached that age where they will be aware of it. We don’t tell them [about my profession] that much, they know what I do, but not in detail. They just know aisa kuch hai, papa shooting pe jaate hain... But kids today are smart. I am sure they will figure it out,” the actor ends.

For the last 12-15 months, word has been making rounds that Shahid Kapoor is expected to move out of his Juhu residence and move into a plush apartment in Worli. The actor and his wife, Mira Rajput Kapoor, finalised the place some time ago, and for the last several months, the house is being done up to suit the couple’s taste and requirements. Mira, had, in fact, shared a glimpse of the house in its ‘work-in-progress’ state on her social media account.

In a recent chat with Shahid, we brought this up and he asserted that he is likely to move into his new house sometime this year. He said, “Ah! We hope to move to it soon. In fact, if all goes well, then it would be this year itself.”

Shahid had bought his current sea-facing house in 2014 and moved out of his apartment at Raj Classique, the building in which his father Pankaj Kapur continues to reside. When asked why he plans to move out of his current home, and Juhu, the heartland of Bollywood in many ways, he said, “We needed more space for our kids (Misha and Zain). We really liked the house we saw. It had a great vibe. It’s a bigger space than what we have right now. The kids are growing up and they will need this kind of space. Right now, everything in my house is my kids’ space. Mira and I need our space, too. With passing time, making more room for the family is extremely important. Family adrak ki tarah hoti hai, failti rehti hai. It grows and that feels wonderful. And as it grows, you have to be able to accommodate it with all its increasing needs.”

In about a year, he will complete two decades in the Hindi film industry. The actor has enjoyed pushing his boundaries with roles that have brought to fore his versatility every time. Shortly after Kabir Singh, he jumped on to the OTT bandwagon, investing a lot of time in his first show, while being deeply involved in the Hindi adaptation of Nani’s Telugu hit, Jersey, which releases this week. In an interview with Bombay Times, Shahid Kapoor talked about being a part of two remakes in his 20-year-long career, and more. Excerpts...

The film choices I make today are based largely on instinct. The first thing you feel from deep down inside is an amalgamation of all that you have experienced in life. And the first voice you hear is the purest; I am trying to listen to that. Of course, there are other factors that you have to account for.

It’s been two years since Kabir Singh released. I feel like kiske pair chooke thank you bolu that I again have a film releasing in theatres. It’s a blessing that we had taken for granted. At a young age, you take many things for granted, and with time, and ups and downs, you learn to respect everything in front of you. I am going through that time in life. I felt at ease after doing Kabir Singh. That was not the feeling I thought I would have after the film. Everyone wants a film with big numbers, right? If I have that big-number film, I thought, I probably will become more self-assured, but it turned into a more humbling experience. I have been just as hardworking. When something has to happen, it will happen at the right time. You learn to appreciate the energies of the universe and stop having ownership over it. I think that is a big realisation everyone must hopefully have in their life. After Kabir Singh, it was only a matter of months before we went into a lockdown which was an uncertain period.

We had half of Jersey to shoot. Shooting movies, which we took for granted, suddenly felt like a privilege. The circumstances were insecure, tentative and we were unsure as as to how we would make movies or and how would we find that atmosphere to make a movie like Jersey, which is personal, emotional, and not some sort of an itemised story. It needed to feel palpable and believable. After that phase, one has learned to appreciate everything that one took for granted. I always worked hard, but at times, I did things that I didn’t understand although everyone felt that was just the thing to do, so I went along. I came into the industry at a time when films were in a certain space which I didn’t connect with. They were not story or character-driven. I wanted to do films of the kind that I had grown up watching. I was doing things that were not me, but today, I am working on things that are closer to my sensibilities.

Why not do a remake? Art is very fluid. People who critique art create certain boundaries for themselves. We all do, actually. We create boundaries which are limiting. I think the most interesting thing about art is that it’s limitless. As far as you are able to make it your own, and be honest, you can try anything. Shakespeare had said that there is no story that has not been told before. It’s not like I am looking out for remakes. It was an opportunity that came my way. Arjun Reddy was the first remake I did. Mira (Rajput, his wife) had seen it and said that I’d be a fool to let it go. I was tempted and yet, unsure. But I did it. And I enjoyed myself. I have a lot of respect for the fact that it is not that easy to do remakes or adaptations.

And if Jersey works, the pressure is probably back on them (laughs!) No, on a serious note, they had called me for a film, but I asked if they had something in the digital domain. I have loved their work and they have an understanding of narrating a story in an episodic manner in the long form. They were surprised that I was interested, and this was soon after Kabir Singh. They wondered why. My question is: why would Matthew McConaughey go from Dallas Buyers Club to True Detective? He has the maturity to understand that it’s the quality of content that travels. There is an audience waiting to consume good stories and characters. This is the time to go back to the basics. Why did I come here to be an actor in the first place? It’s to be able to tell good stories and play some characters that will help me evolve, challenge my abilities and push me as an actor. I don’t think digital is any smaller than theatrical. It might get bigger. I think we’re also being hypocritical here — we love content, but we want to discriminate between the content we’d like to work on as actors. Do it, enjoy it. Over-calculation is not so much fun.

Yes, I do. Once you are married and have kids, you realise that, that is where life begins. Everything just converges. There is a thrust, focus and clarity in every sphere of life. I have felt that shift and I am grateful for it. As for Mira, when we fight, I use it all for my intense scenes, and when we have happier moments, I use that energy to spread positivity. It works for me in every way.