'I did my first fashion show here'

Spontaneous Style

From essaying a blind man in Aankhen to the ambitious good cop in Chakravyuh to a guitarist in ‘Rock On!!’, Arjun Rampal has done justice to each role he takes up. He will soon be seen in Nikhil Advani’s ‘D-Day’, where he plays captain Rudra Pratap Singh of the Indian Armed Forces.

About his character, Arjun says, “Rudra Pratap comes from a very dark space.
He’s been let down a couple of times and therefore, he doesn’t
believe in working with a team because he feels that every individual has his or her weaknesses.

So he likes to work on his own.” He adds, “He goes to hide out in the red light district of Karachi where he meets a prostitute. It’s a really beautiful relationship between an assassin and a prostitute and the dynamics of that, which I really enjoyed
playing in this film.

Two hopeless people — one can kill, the other can sleep with someone for money — find each other and start giving each other hope.” Training for the action sequences with Hollywood action director Tom Struthers was another highlight for him. “He put us in a two-and-a-half month camp where we were fighting with commandos — punching, blocking, fighting with knives, dismantling a gun, putting
it back together.

We met people who train the Mossad who told us how we should walk, how our mannerisms should be,” he recalls. However, he doesn’t feel that this is how all action films need to be. “There are people who choreograph sequences because it’s stylised. With ‘D-Day’, I didn’t want to create a blueprint because everything has to have this uncanny energy that will keep you on the edge of your seat. If a car slams into your car, you see how the guy inside shakes.

And we were shaking because they actually slammed cars into our cars,” he says, quickly adding that it was all done in a very safe manner.

Does he think it will help him if he’s forced to fight in real life? He laughs and replies, “If I got into a street fight, the guy would be cursing himself because he wouldn’t look very good.”

He remembers his modelling days fondly, when the fashion world was “still looking for that industry status”. “There were few designers, few models and it was an
intimate industry that was experimenting and I was lucky to be a part of that. It was a lot more than just walking the runway or doing a good picture,” expresses
Arjun. Entering the world of films was an extension of a childhood love.

“I loved watching movies since I was a kid. I watched all of Mr Bachchan’s films and was a big fan. I used to get completely transported into that world and get lost in it. Then I’d come back, enact it and maybe dress like that actor for a few days, depending on how it influenced me,” he reminisces.

The actor has a strong and personal attachment with the City. “Bangalore’s had some lovely memories for me. I did my first fashion show here as a model and the first time I walked on the runway was with my wife. She wasn’t my wife then and I was so nervous that I held her hand because I thought I was going to faint. She thought I was trying to make a pass at her but then, a relationship’s developed from there,” he smiles.