Sidharth Malhotra ploughs his own dark path

Despite the looks that could get him plum roles serenading the best heroines in Bollywood, Sidharth Malhotra has constantly surprised his audience with his choice of dark, brooding roles. After a slightly softer debut as a struggling, underprivileged student competing for the love of Alia Bhatt in Student of the Year, Malhotra chose the anti-hero role in Ek Villain. Now, as Monty Fernandes in this weekend’s Bollywood release, Brothers, he writes another dark chapter as a testosterone-pumped, bitter man who seeks to settle sibling rivalry scores with his older brother in a bloody confrontation. Yet, Malhotra tells tabloid!, he is very upbeat about this role and is almost certain the audience will love the intensity.

“This film has violence, but there is no negative connotation to it. In fact, there are no villains in the film. There are two heroes fighting to uphold what they believe in. They are engaged in a combative sport in the ring and the film is multi-layered with rich emotions. So there is no mindless violence.”

For someone like Malhotra, it would have been easier to serenade a pretty heroine in a romantic film. But the role of a bitter man expressing his vitriol against his elder brother added another dimension to his diverse portfolio. “Looks can be deceptive. I love challenging myself. I was very conscious of not repeating my persona from Ek Villain. I trained very hard for this role, took four months off from my schedule to pick up the nuances of mixed martial arts. I had to gain 13kg for the role so I literally ate, slept, breathed this role because of my firm convictions. I believed in the character of Monty and this film,” said Malhotra.

Malhotra credits his co-star Akshay Kumar’s support for the chemistry they share on screen. “Akshay had a lot of fun on the sets. He was very supportive and easygoing. He always had tremendous patience and would let me take my time to get the action scenes right. He added a general sense of bonhomie that made things great fun for the entire crew,” he said.

Malhotra has one line of advice for his audience this week. “If you believe in family emotions and love a good sport, you must watch this film.”