Riteish Deshmukh talks about playing evil on-screen

MUMBAI: Actor Riteish Deshmukh surprised the audience with his evil act in the 2004 film "Ek Villain". He followed it up last year with "Marjaavaan" that presented him in a meaner role.

Talking about taking up negative roles in films, Riteish told IANS: "Life is about positivity and being nice. I feel that at some point, we feel negative towards certain things. We might hate something, we might dislike someone, we might feel like punching someone and say 'I don't want to see his face ever again'. Killing is extreme though."

"I am just saying that these are the feelings that we are all filled with. We feel love, humour, empathy, compassion, hatred...but in overall behaviour of ours because of education and our upbringing, we know how to differentiate between good and bad," added the father of two kids.

Riteish shared that he is currently at a stage where he is "teaching this to my children".

"Saying 'thank you' is good, sharing toys is good, it's okay to be second and not to win every time. These are the things you teach your children and prepare them for life. But there are certain people... probably because of their own insecurities. We see that in the society, they take up different things... evil things. We have read about those people but on screen, to get an opportunity to play them and getting into their mind and getting that swag, I got to do that in 'Ek Villain' where I was trying to get into the insecurities of a man, who was a serial killer," he said.

The beauty of the character, he felt, was that he was just a common man who could be anyone - a lightman or electrician or anybody. "And he could kill anyone and disappear in the crowd. If he didn't kill, his insecurities would have been of a man in every building...those insecurities and depression. Not everyone resorts to taking lives though," said the actor.

On the other hand, Vishnu in "Marjaavaan" is larger than life for Riteish. "He is three feet tall but is larger than life. He is evil and mean. He has a great sense of humour. He has an evil sense of humour and he puts other people down," he explained.

The Milap Zaveri-directed film also featured Tara Sutaria, Sidharth Malhotra and Rakul Preet Singh. It will be aired on Sony MAX on February 29.

Meanwhile, Riteish is looking forward to the release of his film "Baaghi 3", which also stars Tiger Shroff.