People don't associate action genre with me: Aditya Roy Kapur

Bollywood star Aditya Roy Kapur, who is reuniting with his Aashiqui 2 director Mohit Suri after seven years, credits the filmmaker for breaking the mould by casting him as an action hero in Malang. The 34-year-old actor said before "Malang", he mostly did romantic roles but Suri, who gave him his career's biggest hit, has faith in him to pull off diverse characters. "Mohit sees certain things in me, which other directors haven't. 'Aashiqui 2' was the first time I did a romantic lead and so he obviously saw that in me.

"Once again, this is him breaking the mould and giving me the chance to do action when I don't think people really could place me in that genre. I give him full credit for being able to have the faith in me to be able to pull it off," Aditya told PTI in an interview.

The actor is confident that audiences will get to see a different side of him in "Malang", which also stars Disha Patani, Anil Kapoor and Kunal Kemmu. "The film that worked for me years ago was "Aashiqui 2'. Then I ended up doing more romantic films, not in the same vein, but at the end of the day, they were all love stories. People started to think that's what you are and it is the pond that you swim in.

"Sometimes they need to be shown something before they can believe it. Maybe it was in my decision making process and that I didn't kind of sniff out something different but action is definitely not a genre that people are associating me with just by virtue of having not done it before," the actor said.

Besides being an action film, Aditya said "Malang" is also a psychological romance thriller. "It's a genre that hasn't been attempted too many times. There is also an element of surprise. There are twists and turns the things that are not what they seem to be. And there is a certain amount of mystery that we want to maintain. Mohit has managed to create some really interesting characters."

Aditya said it was fun and liberating to explore grey shades of his character. "You keep reading about actors that have played villainous roles with various grey shades and say that it's a lot more fun. It is fun because you're not having to always be the right guy, the nice guy or the good guy. It frees you up. I actually had a great time playing this role. As an actor, you need to keep experimenting and kind of exploring different parts of your personality."

Malang is scheduled to be released on Friday.