Neil Nitin Mukesh finds himself drawn to dark roles

Actor Neil Nitin Mukesh may be extremely choosy when it comes to picking up roles, but the young star insists that he’s never afraid to experiment.

“I like to surprise both the audiences and myself as an actor,” he explains, adding, “I don’t see myself ever doing the run-of-the-mill stuff or roles that are easily predictable.”

That also explains why despite his chocolate-boy looks, Mukesh is yet to play the conventional romantic hero on the big screen - a genre that he’s consciously tried to avoid so far.

“When I stepped into Bollywood, playing the romantic hero was the easiest thing to do and also what everyone expected of me given my looks. In fact, those are the roles I was offered the most too, but I didn’t want to take the easy way into Bollywood and waited until Johnny Gadar came along. Since then, every film has been an experiment in itself,” says Mukesh, whose next two onscreen outings too see him play rather unconventional roles.

“Yes, being killed by your wife is pretty unconventional here,” he says referring to his upcoming Vishal Bhardwaj film with Priyanka Chopra.

“To be honest, I find myself drawn to dark roles. I find realism more challenging to depict on screen. As an actor that’s more interesting too,” adds Neil. Talking about playing Chopra’s husband, he says that working with both - Chopra and Bhardwaj - is a sheer delight.

“There’s no other director who could’ve helmed it better than Vishal or an actor who could’ve pulled off the role like Priyanka has. She’s such a live-wire on sets. And working with Vishal is definitely a dream come true,” shares Mukesh.

Though the actor is currently shooting for an action thriller, Mukesh says that comedy is one genre that he’s really looking forward to doing.

“I’d pick comedy over a romantic role any day too,” he says. “But I’m not really a slap-stick humour kind of person. What I’d really like to do is a situational comedy. But I think that in this too, a dark comedy would be just perfect,” he smiles.