I signed 'Hate Story' for purely emotional reasons: Nikhil Dwivedi

He has been around since 2008 but his career graph has been pretty spaced out. Actor Nikhil Dwivedi doesn’t see that as a matter of concern though. “If a script excites me, I’ll probably do two-three films a year or maybe do one film in two years — the quantity of films has never been an overruling factor for me,” he states.

His forthcoming release, director Vivek Agnihotri’s Hate Story, is already grabbing a lot of attention. Nikhil’s role in this erotic thriller though is a ‘clean’ one, as he puts it.

“The only reason I agreed to do this film was producer Vikram Bhatt. He’s one person who’s stood by me always and I couldn’t have said no to him. Even though the film is extremely bold, contentwise, I know Vivek to be a very aesthetic film-maker and was confident that the final wouldn’t be titillating,” says the actor.

Ask Nikhil about his co-actors, newbies Paoli Dam and Gulshan Devaiah and he states, “I didn’t share much screen space with Gulshan and I definitely wouldn’t call Paoli a newbie, considering she has done 20-odd Bengali films already.”

Nikhil, whose last release, Shor In The City, turned out to be a sleeper hit, is glad with how the film fared. “Finally, the industry and the audience are sitting up to such scripts. I must say the credit goes to people like Ekta Kapoor, who have decided to trust film-makers, actors and scripts that aren’t necessarily ‘stars’,” he quips.

The actor is currently busy shooting for Tamanchey, a film which interested him enough to get actively involved in the pre-production stage. “Both the director and producer of the film are first-timers, hence we thought it was important to work together on the creative aspect of the film. The technical crew are some of the who’s who from their respective fields and Tamanchey is one film that I’m really proud of being a part of,” admits Nikhil, who will soon start work on Ghayal Returns.

The actor who has worked with the likes of Mani Ratnam and E Niwas says that while script is king, there are a handful of people in the industry who he can’t refuse. “Hate Story was for purely emotional reasons,” he signs off.