Didn’t want to do a masala film

‘Simmba’ can be called an acid test for Ranveer Singh. So far, all the three big hits in his eight-year-old career have been with the same director-heroine team of that of Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Deepika Padukone.

In his last blockbuster outing ‘Padmaavat’, he even had another hero, Shahid Kapoor to share credit with. The fact is that the solos (except for his debut ‘Band Baaja Baaraat’), that he attempted without this team have not been very successful be it ‘Ladies vs. Ricky Bahl’, ‘Kill Dil’, ‘Lootera’ or ‘Befikre’, though he often walked away with accolades for his performances.

However, ‘Simmba’, his first masala entertainer that hits the screens on December 28, is the golden opportunity for Ranveer to prove his mettle at the box office, and if the Rohit Shetty film works, it will be a Ranveer Singh show all the way and he can be called a star-actor doing ‘in and as’ roles.

“Being Rohit Shetty’s leading man is a big deal for me. This film was offered to me post ‘Bajirao Mastani’, I wanted to do a masala film. But I didn’t want to do a masala film if it was not for Rohit because to me there is nobody else who gets it right. I wanted to do this genre only with him because to me he is the king of this genre. I waited and finally earned my stripes. One has to have a certain amount of equity that qualifies you to be the leading man of a masala film,” says the 33-year-old actor.

Showsha