Arjun Kapoor: Choosing vulnerable characters is embedded in my personality – Times of India

Right from his first film, ‘Ishaqzaade‘, Arjun Kapoor has always had the image of a macho hero attached to him. However, he tells us that characters with shades of vulnerability draw him. Be it his role in ‘2 States’, that saw him playing a leading man, who is openly devastated post his break-up, or his role as a househusband in ‘Ki & Ka’, the actor hasn’t shied away from playing characters that don’t hide their emotions. Ask Arjun whether these choices are a reflection of his thoughts and experiences derived from his personal life, and he says, “The selection of going against patriarchy or norms is one aspect of it, while the vulnerability is another aspect, and both are subconscious because both are somewhere embedded within my system and personality. However, at the end of the day, Ki & Ka was a known selection of something that you know will make people question certain things, while something like ‘Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar’ was more about the friction between the social and economic divide, and then there’s a layer of patriarchy and various other aspects.”

The actor feels that his image is largely due to his physicality. “I have never really thought about the macho image because that’s inherently come to me from my first film, it’s not something I have worked towards,” he says, adding, “For that, I think the physicality helps along with the kind of films I was offered earlier in my career.”

Be it ‘Ishaqzaade’, ‘Gunday‘ or ‘Tevar‘, Arjun has played the typical Bollywood hero, who throws punches and knocks out a bunch of goons within no time. This perhaps was the sort of mainstream hero he had grown up watching in Hindi films. “I built a body of work where I look like I can play that macho, mainstream hero. But there’s also a film like 2 States, which is possibly a nice example of an introverted person who is resilient enough to stay with his mother, and at the same time, has a strong reaction when he has to man up and protect her.”

Reflecting on his choices so far, he adds, “It’s interesting to realise that I have been selecting these parts, but it’s not always been a very conscious endeavour…. barring Ki & Ka, in which the whole structure around it was to create shock value.”