Kunal Kapoor: I have always been comfortable sharing screen space

Playing the lead in every film isn’t what Kunal Kapoor focuses on, but the quality of roles he gets. And that is evident in his body of work, right from his debut in 2004 with Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities. This is also why the 44-year-old is not up for grabbing every role that comes his way.

“My debut was as unconventional as it can get, it was obviously more about Tabu’s character than mine. The I did Rang De Basanti (2006), which was an ensemble piece, then Laaga Chunari Mein Daag (2007), Bachna Ae Haseeno (2008)…all ensembles,” he says.

For Kapoor, the screen time he gets isn’t the priority. Instead, he looks for scripts with unique characters. “I have always been comfortable (sharing screen space). In Bachna Ae Haseeno, for example, what I found interesting was my character was not written in a typical way of how you show Sikhs in films. They are either doing buffoonery, or dancing in fields. My character had a lot of dignity. I don’t see the way they show Sikh characters in films, in my life,” says Kapoor, who was recently seen in the web show The Empire.

However, over the years, Kapoor admits he has had to compromise criteria of playing “atypical” roles. He says, “I have taken up projects which I didn’t want to do, and which I just thought at that point of time was the right thing to do. Every film of mine which I did that way, I would think ‘why am I doing this? I didn’t want to really do this’ When you are on set for a film which you don’t enjoy… I don’t want to put myself through this again and will wait for the right kind of work. I won’t put myself in a situation where I land up on set and say ‘okay this is not fun’.”