Though Hema Malini’s much-anticipated ‘Tell Me Oh Khuda’ (TMOK) is being publicised as a re-launch vehicle for daughter Esha Deol, for Arjan Bajwa, the film’s hero, it’s an equally crucial film. Of course, Bajwa’s extended cameo as Priyanka Chopra’s boyfriend in ‘Fashion’ did give him a few brownie points in Bollywood but it didn’t exactly send producers knocking on his doorstep.
That’s when he turned down South for some creative gratification.
Sure enough, it came in the form of few Telugu films. But even those, apart from sharpening his language skills, failed to rock any top heroes boat in Tollywood.
In between came the Mani Ratnam film, ‘Guru’ followed by the now old news, ‘Fashion’. So it just seems right that Bajwa is concentrating his energies on promoting TMOK, where he plays this do-gooder boyfriend, who stands by his ladylove’s side during her hour of crisis.
“I was in awe of Hemaji to start with but she completely floored me with her sense of humour,” begins the actor who insists that Hema Malini wrote the script keeping him in mind.
Quiz him about Esha’s “re-launch” and he takes offence- “See, she’s done more than 20 films and she’s such a fantastic actor, you can say it’s her second coming. She’s even done her own stunts in the film,” he offers.
Bajwa says though he cannot be called a method actor, he does like to do a lot of research before embarking on a role. “As an actor, I hate to be categorised into any genre though I do love the kind of movies that Ram Gopal Varma makes,” says the model-turned-actor. Having come from a non-film background (his dad was a former deputy Mayor of Delhi), Bajwa thinks it’s definitely tougher to gain an entry in the industry if you don’t belong to a film family.
“See the kind of actors who come now. They either come from a film family or are graduates from International film schools and are trained in every possible way. Pure talent alone won’t work, you need to have a smart PR agent as well if not an intelligent manager,” avers the actor.
He is equally looking forward to his next film ‘Vibheeshan’ directed by newcomer Maqbool Khan, where he plays the title role along with Manoj Bajpayee. As for now he’s just keeping fingers crossed for ‘Tell Me Oh Khuda’.