Khalid Siddiqui: Being a single father has helped me connect to Mariam Khan - Reporting Live

Dream Girl on Life OK, Saath Nibhana Saathiya on Star Plus... I have done cameos in Swabhimaan, Piya Albela on Zee TV.

I have two kids and most of the time I have always played a father on screen and Mariam Khan Reporting live is a story of a father and a daughter's relationship. It is about the values that a father gives to his daughter and how for the daughter, her father is a superhero, her everything. Since I have two kids and being a single father, I have been taking care of the kids from such a long time, so I can easily connect with Mariam Khan also. 

I have done Joggers Park, Ghajini and Apaharan and few individual films like Ho Sakta Hain and Riwaayat. Ghajini was a very good experience because I worked with Aamir Khan I played his personal manager and we shot for 20 days together. It was quite an experience and that has been my favourite film.

Though I have worked as an actor, I still consider myself as a model because modeling has always been my first love as I started my career as a model. Ghajini gave me recognition, people remember me from the film, like these days people remember me as Mariam Khan's Abbu. Advertising has always been my favourite, my forte. 

Advertisements will always remain my first love, television and films both are interesting in their own way. Like in television, you are acting every day, every day you are getting better, working on your acting skills and learning something new. You play a particular character every day so you live the character, you don't have to work on it every day.

You rehearse lines and at some point, the lines come automatically. It's a beautiful medium where you work on yourself every day. Films, of course, have their own charm where you work for a particular period, you have time for other things and then you move on to a different project, you get to play a different character. It's a wonderful medium as well. 

I was an introvert and was media shy. This is why I have always kept a low profile. When I first started advertising, I was careful that I wasn't overexposed or do a lot of commercials so that I get too known. If you keep a low profile, your career goes on for a long time which touch-wood has worked. At the same time, fame also didn't matter much to me. I was living my own life happy, being content with myself.

So, the whole idea is fame is a criteria to get more work is not true. I have been working all my life, I have never been out of work or out of job except for 2 or 3 months other than that I have always been working. I don't find it relevant to garner more publicity for no reason. I have been happy in my skin and I never felt the need to be more famous, neither do I have that greed. If I wake up tomorrow morning and see that people don't know me, it would not make a difference to me. What matters to me are my friends and family, they have been loving me and they keep on loving me. I am happy with that I don't want anything more than that.

I have never thought that I will only play such characters as I played in Piya Albela. Then, I played a positive character which then turned negative in Saath Nibhana Saathiya. I don't have fixed criteria that I have to play a certain character. But whatever character comes to me and I find it interesting and the people are nice to work with, I do it. I am not very choosy about the roles but it has to be respective. 

I don't see myself anywhere in next 5 years. I live in the moment and I believe that God has taken care of me always and he is going to take care of me in the future too. I have submitted myself completely to the will of God. I don't know what is going to happen in the future. Probably, what I want five years from now is to stay healthy and fit.

While I am working, traveling to work or when I am at home with kids, I want music playing in my background. I like to read books on sufism. I like to play with my kids after a hard day's work. In fact, all three of us sit, chat and have a lot of fun.