Emraan Hashmi finds it hard to please the audience

Actor Emraan Hashmi says he can never conform to set notions of how a Bollywood hero should be though he tries to strike a balance for his viewers.

The actor said his audience is divided into two segments, one that wants him to experiment more and the others who love him in his comfort zone.

Hashmi, who has featured popular films like the ‘Murder’ and ‘Jannat’ franchise, ‘Once Upon a Time in Mumbai’ and later appeared in edgy movies such as ‘Shanghai’, and ‘Ghanchakkar’, said it is a struggle to do the balancing act.

“They always want to see you in a particular thing and then when you step out of that, a lot of people get upset about it. This is very true to our audience, not international audience,” Emraan said. The actor said there are some “set notions” of what a leading man should or shouldn’t do in India.

“In the end of ‘Ghanchakkar’, when I am getting beaten up, the audience was angry, a lot of distributors said why are you doing this? I was being honest to the character. But this is how Indian films are. They want to see the hero do certain, stereotypical things. Be that hero who does that time and again, I find that exhausting. That’s why, I took a departure,” he added.

The actor will be next seen in Sanjay Gupta’s ‘Mumbai Saga’ and ‘Chehre’, which also co-stars Amitabh Bachchan.