A versatile actor, Mukul Dev not only plays characters with different shades, but also speaks in different languages — from Hindi to Punjabi, Telugu to Tamil, Kannada to Bengali. He has carved a place for himself in the Indian film industry, within and beyond Bollywood. Taking a small break from his busy shooting schedule, Mukul was in New Delhi to spend some time with his daughter, as well as his parents.
Stereotyped for doing negative roles in most of his films, including the upcoming Salman Khan starrer Jai Ho, where he plays a corrupt politician, Mukul is open to all kinds of roles. Out of three of his upcoming Hindi films he plays a negative role only in Jai Ho. He plays the protagonist in Vikram Bhatt’s Creature and will be seen in a comic role in Sunny Deol starrer Bhaiyyaji Superhit.
“I like to do all kinds of roles. In my last film R…Rajkumar, I had a negative role but with positive shades to my character. Among my upcoming films, I play a negative role in Jai Ho and a positive one in Creature. One of my upcoming Punjabi films will see me as a villain and the other as a hero. I believe in doing different kinds of roles because that keeps you on your toes. It keeps you alive,” shares Mukul.
And despite that positive attitude towards his roles, he is seen in more of negative ones. He clarifies, “Well, that’s because I love to do negative roles too. While taking up any film, I see how the script is, but more importantly, how my role is placed in the script. If I see that it’s a role, no matter how small, that people will remember after the film is over, and it’s a role that adds value to the script, I go for it. I don’t particularly give weightage to the fact if it’s a positive or a negative one.”
Asked about the negative reactions his last film R…Rajkumar got from critics, Mukul strongly reacts that it’s the critics who need to rethink their parameters of criticism. “For a film like R…Rajkumar, which is meant for a very casual attention span, it should be reviewed with a different mindset. It’s not the kind of film where you think a lot, marveling at different frames. It’s a film with a lot of laughter, a lot of action, a lot of masala dialogues and a lot of dancing. And it worked really well with the audience. So I feel the onus is not on the filmmaker but on the critics to change their mindset while reviewing films like this. You can’t review it with same parameters as you would review a biopic or a drama. In fact, this film serves as a perfect example of how critics should change their yardsticks to bridge the gap between them and the audience. After all, they are not writing for themselves but for the people,” concludes Mukul.
