How do you choose a role from the plethora of offers that come your way?
I don’t look at the length of the role; I look at the character’s importance in the subject. If the character wasn’t there, would the story move forward? I had two releases, Ranneeti: Balakot & Beyond and Murder in Mahim, where I play two distinct characters. In Ranneeti, I play a suave and overpowering ISI Chief. In Murder in Mahim, my character Peter Fernandes [modelled on the author] is subdued, but he has tremendous [inner] strength. In one, you get to see power, in the other, strength. I have never played such a low-key character. When I play Peter, I notice the character’s body language, the walk, the way he talks and looks. If a character forces me to break my mould and not carry my traits forward, it’s a win-win.

Apart from the script, how much of the character’s creation is your own doing?
Pick any character and you can never know all its traits. We can write a character’s main traits, you have to explore the rest as an actor. Before knowing a character, you have to know yourself well first; you have to know how you’d react to a situation and then change the reaction to suit your character. This is an on-going process and I take it quite spiritually.

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Tell us more about Peter Fernandes.
He was a journalist, but took early retirement because he was fed up with where journalism was heading. However, when his son, who attended a gay parade, is a person of interest in the killings of the LGBTQiA+ people, he goes back into investigative mode. He has to fight against powerful people to prove his son’s innocence.

Did you read the book or meet the author?
Whenever a story is [adapted], I try not to watch [or read] the original unless I am done with my act. Else it will impact my performance, it will limit my imagination. After finishing the show, I read the book, and interestingly, the series is shot exactly how the book describes the story. I had not met the author but my mother-in-law is his good friend. Through her I learnt that Jerry is happy that I played the character. 

You say that you look at your character’s importance when choosing projects. But so often, talented actors are wasted in films, like you were in Fighter.
It’s a pain an actor has to go through. Sometimes, you have to do it out of respect and affection for someone. I have done films with Siddharth [Anand] like War (2019) and Pathaan (2023). He didn’t ask me, he simply said that I was his lucky mascot and wanted me in his film. He said that I have two key scenes, and I have to portray everything in those scenes, instead of adding four extra scenes to establish the father-daughter relationship between [Deepika Padukone’s] character and me. Sometimes, it hurts, because while we may imagine a story in a certain way, it doesn’t pan out accordingly. The only problem is when other filmmakers feel that since I have done a special appearance in Siddharth’s film, I’ll do it for everyone. It’s a risk, but you have to find a way around it. The other problem of saying no is that you have to wait a long time to find your next role.