Anil Kapoor to shave off his goatee!

Anil Kapoor will get rid of his trademark goatee to play a cop in the Clive Owen-starrer Cities, has asked Priyadarshan to wrap up Tezz quickly so he can go in for a makeover.

Anil Kapoor is ready for a makeover. For Roger Donaldson’s upcoming Hollywood movie, Cities, he will shave off his trademark goatee. He plays a “serious cop” in Cities that co-stars Clive Owen (Closer, Sin City, Inside Man). The goatee was a part of his look in the TV series 24 as well as the Tom Cruise franchise, Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol. But now, he has asked director Priyadarshan to quickly wrap up his Hindi movie, Tezz, so he can get rid of it.

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“I haven’t locked the final look yet, but it’s going to be very different from how I look now in Cities and Race 2. I am really excited,” says Anil.

The last schedule of Tezz gets over on August 15 and then Anil will fly off to Los Angeles to shoot some additional scenes for Mission Impossible 4. “I start Cities in November after wrapping up a little portion of Race 2 that flags off in October. We have a schedule in London before moving to Mumbai in January. Ramesh Taurani (producer) has told me that we should be finished with Race 2 by February,” informs Anil.

The 51-year-old actor had earlier played a cop in films like Ram Lakhan (1989) and Race (2008), but insists that he will be portraying a “serious Indian cop” for the first time in Cities. “The look has to be right. I’ve also started meeting people, including policemen, to get into the character,” he asserts.

However, Anil admits that he doesn’t have any scenes with Clive. “There are stories set in three different cities - New York, London and Mumbai. They are inter-connected, but the characters don’t meet. So Clive will shoot only in New York and not come down to Mumbai,” he reasons.

He is also thrilled to be working with Donaldson, who has directed films like The Bounty (1984), Cocktail (1988) and The Recruit (2003). “I was with him when he came to Mumbai for a recce and later met him in LA,” says Anil. “He is very satisfied with the locations in Mumbai.”