My idea of a film is different from masala type: Rahul Bose

Talking to reporters, Rahul said Aniruddha was busy writing the script for the film. The 'thinking man's actor' as he is known among his aficionados, Rahul is seen often in Bengali films these days and the actor has no qualms in admitting that he is not "into the Bollywood's masala kind of films".

"My idea of a film is different from a typical masala type and I am open to working with all sensitive directors from Bengal, excepting one." In fact it is directors like Aparna Sen, Buddhadeb Dasgupta and now Aniruddha who gave him the maximum creative satisfaction, said Rahul. While it was Sen's 'Mr and Mrs Iyer' that catapulted him into the reckoning of discerning viewers, Buddhadeb Dasgupta's 'Kalpurush' and more recent 'The Japanese Wife' strengthened his credentials as a cerebral actor.

"I am happy to be part of more films by Aparna and Aniruddha. I also want to work with Buddhadeb Dasgupta again after 'Kalpurush' where I was cast in the role of a romanticist sharing a relationship, partly real and partly metaphysical, with his father enacted by Mithun Chakraborty."

The actor, who also starred in Aparna Sen's '15 Park Avenue' and Khalid Mohammed's 'Silsilay', said, "It's a combination of certain factors. It relates to how good the story is, how good the director is and how good your role is that makes you accept a film." In one word, whatever the medium of the film - Bengali, Hindi or English - what matters to Rahul is how different his character is from the run-of-the-mill, cardboard type, the actor explains.

"It's what fascinates me," Rahul says without sounding pompous. He also wants to act in films which deal with avant-garde subjects like Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury's 'Antaheen' and 'Anuranan'.

While 'Antaheen', starring Aparna Sen, Sharmila Tagore, Radhika Apte besides himself, deals with love and loneliness as well as intrusion of the net in the lives of young professionals, 'Anuranan' speaks about how real relationships flourish in the lap of nature and last through years.

Speaking on Samar Khan's army-backdrop film 'Shaurya', where he starred along with K K Menon, Rahul said, "Instead of going overboard, I had tried to bring a lot more subtlety to my character, one who does not rave and rant as the convention demands.''

Coming to 'Japanese Wife' which portrays a long distance romance through letters, Rahul said he derived much satisfaction playing the role of a mufassil school teacher Snehamoy. "I tried hard to pick up the ways of a school teacher from Sunderbans by actually speaking to a number of school teachers of the area. I listened to how they spoke and behaved. It is possibly the finest character that I have essayed with Aparna."

He also rates his performances in 'Chameli' and 'English August' as "subtle and quite". Coming to his first directorial debut 'Everybody Says I Am Fine', made a couple of years back, Rahul said the film in a way exposed the dichotomy in the life of upper class people. Bose will be stepping behind the camera once again with 'Moth Smoke', which is based on Pakistani writer Mohsin Ahmed's book of the same name.