I thought to myself, it must be a guest appearance, says Shahid on his role in Padmaavat

Shahid Kapoor has been receiving immense praises for his heroic performance in the Sanjay Leela Bhansali directorial, Padmaavat . His co-star in the period movie, Ranveer Singh is also garnering outstanding reviews for his stellar performance in the movie. A certain segment of the audience believes that the film belongs to Ranveer, despite Kapoor doing full justice to his character. Shahid is not all perturbed by such comparisons. Explaining why he chose to take up the role despite knowing that Khilji’s was a bigger and well fleshed out character, Shahid says he did the film because he is a great admirer of Bhansali’s work.

“On a personal level, it was a huge risk for me. Everyone I know told me not to do the film. They said, ‘It already has Ranveer and Deepika, so why do you want to be the third spoke in the wheel?’ Honestly, even I believed that in the beginning. I thought to myself, it must be a guest appearance. Why would Bhansali sir suddenly think about it two months after the other star cast was announced? But I’m such a huge lover of his work that I had to meet him to try and understand what was going on. He insisted on coming home. I had just had my daughter. And this was the first thing I was starting after Misha’s birth. It was an important juncture in my life. Marriage, baby, etc. I was a young father who was in his first year-and-a-half of his marriage. You get the picture, right?” said the actor to a daily.

Shahid is now looking forward to his next film, Batti Gul Meter Chalu . A Shree Narayan Singh directorial the movie also stars Shraddha Kapoor and Yami Gautam .