Arjun Rampal: I lean more towards dystopian, issue-based and gritty stories

A quick look at his career graph and itrsquos easy to see Arjun Rampalrsquos fascination for complex roles He assures that London Files is another addition to the list The actor who plays a dysfunctional cop in Voot Selectrsquos upcoming series says the role demanded considerable prep Over to Rampal as he dissects why he was drawn to the series and his evolution as an artisteEdited excerpts from the interviewWhat was novel about the show that attracted you to itOm Singh is by far the most interesting character I have played in my career He is a dysfunctional cop The story highlights a lot of issues that people are facing It depicts how parenting affects children today What happens when the government suddenly passes the antiimmigration bill and takes away the rights of people who have migrated and been given citizenship in a foreign country What happens when countries start shutting their borders A lot of issues have been cleverly written in the show with the help of layered charactersDo you gravitate towards intense roles over sliceoflife storiesThis is definitely a sliceoflife story laughs Sometimes you just attract certain things and you say yes hoping you can do the part I love sliceoflife shows If a good script comes along Irsquoll do it But right now I lean more towards dystopian issuebased and gritty storiesTell us about your prep for the characterWith London Files I have spent a lot of time with the core team when the script was coming alive A lot of contribution has come in from the director Sachin Pathak on how to do a scene We are showing a guy who worked in the London police force so you cannot have the British chief talking in Hindi So we did those scenes in English I havenrsquot done many English films but I aspired to make it look real You have to do a lot of workshops and understand the world you portray to make it more realThere are two types of actors mdash one who lives the part and one who can switch on and off Which one are youFor me itrsquos a combination of the two You have to switch off at some point or you will get exhausted It is important to detach it can give you new ideas about the character but at the same time I canrsquot completely switch off I have to be in the zone That is why I do one project at a time Sometimes it is difficult to switch off because the character stays with you But as you start prepping for the next project you let the earlier character goHow do you feel yoursquove evolved as an actorSometimes I feel on top of the world Just when I start feeling that way I go to the set and do a terrible scene laughs There have been times in my career when I have done scenes on a superficial level Now I take every character and make it a part of me It could also be attributed to being inexperienced and the choices I have made Earlier I didnrsquot get parts that I could go deeper into The choices I make today allow me to do thatYou are making your Telugu debut I am walking into the unknown It is going to be on the scale of Pushpa RRR and Baahubali I want to work in the south industry The film stars Pawan Kalyan and I am playing a largerthanlife character Irsquom nervous I donrsquot know what to expect but I am going out there to experience something