Bharat isn’ t too perturbed by the fact that his debut Hindi film, Jackpot, is being sold as a Sunny Leone movie. “Obviously, Sunny is a known face and it is right that they should market the film in her name. As far as I am concerned, this movie will give me a national platform. Let me first give it a shot, then I can decide my next plan of action,” says the actor, who is playing a con artist in the film that also stars Sachiin Joshi and Naseerudin Shah.
The Gustad factor
So let’s start from the beginning. How did the actor, whose last film 555 was a box office hit, find himself in a Kaizad Gustad movie? “They were impressed by my stills from 555. But I wasn’t too clued-in about Kaizad till I googled him. If this movie was made in Tamil I would not have done it. I took it only because I wanted to get into Bollywood,” says the actor.
Kaizad has given him a role that is not completely alien to his psyche. The actor plays a Pondicherry-born Christian settled in Goa, who calls himself Pondy and speaks a smattering of Tamil, Hindi and English. He admits that the difficult part, obviously, was mastering Hindi. Bharath is all praise for Shah, with whom he has celebrated birthdays.
Do the new
His experiments are not just confined to Bollywood, for he has also signed a Malayalam film with Mohanlal called Koothara. “I was excited at the prospect of working with a fresh cast and I was looking for a good role in Malayalam,” he says. Bharath has signed two films in Tamil, both with new directors.
He is impressed by Bollywood’s promotional campaigns and thinks Tamil cinema should make a note of it. “Now, even in Tamil cinema, we realise that a film’s promotion must be taken seriously,” he says. As for his dream role, the dancing star wants to do something on the lines of Fast Forward and Step Up. Till then, he is giving projects like Jackpot a shot.