Sohum Shah had first refused Simran in which he plays Kangana's love interest

After Ship Of Thesus and Talvar, Sohum Shah will be seen next in the biopic, Simran, that has Kangana Ranaut playing the titular role. Sohum plays her romantic interest, which is a first for him as he had no heroine in the films he has done so far. “Yes, and I am enjoying this,” he grins.

When director Hansal Mehta had offered the role to him he had initially turned it down. “I had seen Hansal’s Shahid and since then, I wanted to worked with him. Even my Ship Of Thesus had released around the same time and Hansal had liked my work. But when he offered me Simran, I refused it because I did not like the brief that he had sent to me. He later called and asked me to meet him. When he narrated the script and my character, I immediately agreed,” says Sohum, who was given a signing amount of Rs 500 then and there.

Wasn’t he apprehensive of being sidelined in a film centering around Kangana? “No, I never have these kind of apprehensions. Even in Talvar, Irrfan Khan’s was the main character, but I liked my role. It had a lot of grey shades. In Simran too, there is enough meat in my role.”

As for his co-star Kangana, Sohum says he admired her work since Queen and Tanu Weds Manu. “I am fascinated by her journey. She is from a small-town and I relate to that because I am also from one. As a co-actor, she is very helpful and easy-going. She doesn’t have any attitude because she is a big star — if we have to go for one more take, she is cool about it,” says the actor who plays a character close to how he is is real life. “I can’t tell you more about it now, but some of his and my traits are similar,” he says.    

Besides acting in the biopic, Sohum is also producing and starring in Tumbad, which is a period film set in the 1920s.