Rajniesh Duggall: It’s my time now and things are falling in place too

With six projects lined up for release this year, ‘1920’ fame actor Rajniesh Duggall says, “By God’s grace everything is falling in place and it’s my time now!” He is currently shooting in Lucknow for OTT series ‘Inspector Avinash’ with Randeep Hooda.

With six projects lined up for release this year, ‘1920’ fame actor Rajniesh Duggall says, “By God’s grace everything is falling in place and it’s my time now!”

Actor Rajniesh Duggall is currently shooting for OTT series ‘Inspector Anivash’ in Lucknow. (HT Photo)

The former Mr India and reality show ‘Khatron Ke Khiladi’ winner adds, “With projects that I had shot before lockdown and in the unlock phase, I have some tremendous work coming up. I am in a very good space now. As you say: ‘loha garam hai, maar do hatoda’. So, it’s my time now.”

The actor is currently shooting in Lucknow for OTT series ‘Inspector Avinash’ with Randeep Hooda.

Giving an insight, he says, “I have completed Sanjiv Jaiswal’s ‘Bagawat’ where I play a Dalit rebel and was shot entirely in Lucknow. Before lockdown, I shot web-series ‘The Ghost Thesis’ where I am a paranormal researcher, horror-comedy film ‘Khali Bali’ and ‘Mandali’ based on Munshi Premchand’s story ‘Ramleela’ that we shot in Gokul-Mathura. In unlock phase, I have shot ‘Flawed’ in Kota where I play an alcoholic while in Partho Ghosh’s series ‘The Prefect Script’ a theatre thespian.” In ‘Inspector Avinash’ series he plays a cop.

Rajniesh with Randeep Hooda and Ajay Singh Chaudhury at Bahu Begum’s tomb in Faizabad (now Ayodhaya) (Sourced)

The ‘Dangerous Ishq’ actor said he is doing negative shades and multi-starrer projects that he didn’t do earlier. “I have been playing male protagonist in all my films. But, after lot of thinking, I realised that I need to come out of this ‘masala-film’ zone and sweet-boy image. Working with people like writer-director Rakesh Chaturvedi and actor-coach Shreedhar Dubey changed my mindset and then the lockdown phase gave us time to think everything all-over again,” he says.

Now, he has changed his approach. “In one of the projects where I was offered lead role I chose a different character as there was more scope for me to perform. I realised that in parallel roles you get to show more colours than main hero. Now, am I exploring different roles. The only criteria are that it is has to be realistic and secondly how important is my role in the script.”

The actor is, however, still game for masala films but says it needs to be sensible content as the choice of audience has also changed over the period of time.