Every question we ask Rahul Bose is met with wit and dry humour. So, we aren’t surprised when the actor-filmmaker reveals he has cracked a hilarious script for his next directorial venture. However, he says some people were surprised to see such a script coming from him. “Someone told me, ‘You couldn’t have written it. It’s funny!’ That’s the greatest compliment I’ve received for it,” he laughs, before adding, “The person said, ‘It’s [mainstream]. It’s a riot, it’s not from you. We’ve never seen this Rahul before.’”

Bose, who made his directorial debut with Everybody Says I’m Fine (2001), following it up with Poorna (2017), will wield the directorial baton again sometime next year for the new script. But before that, the actor in him is reporting to duty for Berlin. Bose plays an intelligence officer in ZEE5’s upcoming bureaucratic thriller that also stars Ishwak Singh and Aparshakti Khurana. Ask him what drew him to the Atul Sabharwal-directed thriller, and pat comes another joke. “Atul gave me lots 
of money!”