Fourteen years after he tugged at the heartstrings of young teenage girls with Mera Pehla Pehla Pyar, Ruslaan Mumtaaz is set to revisit the romantic-comedy genre with Netflix’s Namaste Wahala. While the Valentine’s Day release was canned by the actor “without any baggage or expectations”, he admits to getting cold feet as D-day approaches. “I was approached for this film a year ago, and was told that it would be shot in Africa, with an African crew. I sought to have a unique experience, and work with a different set of people. Now, my friends across the globe are excited to watch it, and I [am questioning] the things that I have done. Had this been a Bollywood film, I would’ve trained for six months, and followed a diet. In this case, I was eating and enjoying the night before a scene that required me to bare my body,” says the actor.  

Apart from the fact that he has found favour in the genre, a big draw for Mumtaaz was the chance to collaborate with North East fame actor Ini Dima-Okojie, and veteran star Richard Mofe-Damijo (RMD). “They are the Deepika Padukone and Amitabh Bachchan of [the Nigerian] film industry. I wanted to be an able representative of the Hindi film industry. RMD is a national heart-throb,” says the actor adding that his suggestions, including one to change the name of his character from Rajesh to Raj to give “their audiences a slice of Bollywood”, was appreciated. “I also have songs-and-dance sequences.”