Why Emraan felt feminine

Being released this Friday, Awarapan is the first big budget film from the Mahesh Bhatt stable, though it continues to star the actor who is now a permanent feature in Bhatt movies.

"Mohit Suri wanted me to grow my hair and stubble for character," Emraan said, "and so I did this but it was a little strange. I used to feel like a heroine, especially because I had my own hairdresser who would stay on the sets and look after my mane."

Emraan and Mohit play brothers in the film, and this is their third film together, after having worked in Zeher and Kalyug. "Mohit said you need to change your image for this one and work on your hair," Emraan said, "and so we tried many different styles -- and conducted some experiments! -- before settling on this one."

"I used to take as much time as any heroine would with her make up," laughed Emraan. The female leads in Awarapan are being played Shriya Saran and Mrinalini Sharma. But his character in the movie is anything but effeminate. "I have dabbled in the dark side and played gangster in other films also," said Emraan, "but in this I'm going to be darker."

Known as the serial kisser, he said he would not be smooching in this film and whatever he would express he would do "though my emotions alone."

He said this brought his role into alignment with his character: "it was difficult for me to portray emotion without physical action and to express myself through just moving my eyes around and without any dialogue," he said, "but in a way it was also easy because I'm a little like that, and not very demonstrative."

Wednesday, June 27, 2007