‘Hansal ji wanted to see the love in my eyes’

ldquoThis is not the first role I have been offeredrdquo Ranveer Brar says when we wonder when exactly did he decide he would become a celebrity of a different sort ldquoBut most of them were for South Indian films I was asked to play the stereotypical villain I think I look khadoosrdquoWe are meeting the chef at his Goregaon studio a day before the local chapter of original American anthology Modern Love releases on Amazon Prime Video One of the six short stories is titled Baai and directed by Hansal Mehta Brar plays the gay love interest of Pratik Gandhi The short tells the story of Manzu Gandhi a man who belongs to a conservative household and his struggle to tell his grandmother his truthDressed in a quirky cartoon strip shirt and hair on point Brar seems to have rolled out of bed but is ever ready to face the camera His wide smile and energy gets the studio boys flitting around setting up the kitchen with a samovar pots pans and achar barnis His bartan stash is to envy Brar is finicky about the lighting and quick to realise that the colour temperature of the soft box light needs adjusting so that it falls equally on his faceWe sit to chat over chaibunmaska and he fills us in on how this happened Food is the common denominator of course Brar got a call from casting director Mukesh Chhabrarsquos office requesting an audition for Mehta ldquoHansalji and his penchant for food is well known he is the one who started Khana Khazana with chef Sanjeev Kapoor So we were acquainted earlierrdquoHe was given an easy piece for the audition with hardly any dialogue ldquoThe powerful delivery was by the mother Mansi Joshi Roy who confesses to not understanding the culture where love can cross boundaries and how she feels there is only one way of looking at love ldquoAll I had to do was lsquohmmmrsquo and lsquohaanrsquo I was soldrdquo he remembersOnce Brar gave his nod he expected a call for a workshop or script reading When neither happened he panicked ldquoThis meant Hansal ji expected the world from me lsquoTeri ankhon mein kuch hai That is all that mattersrsquo he told merdquoWhat Brar had to work on was curtail projecting himself which is usually what he does when he speaks to his audience on social media or his YouTube channel ldquoI am speaking to my audience and so I project myself That part had to be toned down Interestingly the parts where I was not donning a chef coat and cooking came easier When I would overdo the chef role Hansal ji would say lsquoNamak jaise ban jao you need it but you canrsquot overuse itrsquordquoOn day one the scenes were most uncomfortable which Brar says felt like being thrown in the deep pool He admits he didnrsquot give much thought to the fact that he was playing a queer man ldquoHe explained that I didnrsquot need to be a certain way to portray the character I could think I was expressing love to a girl if I so wanted He just wanted to see the love in my eyesrdquo says Brar who calls himself a hopeless romantic off camera ldquoLove should be unconditional and I donrsquot like compartmentalising it Love goes wrong when you sketch a boundary around it This concept makes me a misfit sometimes For me love is what I felt at Rumirsquos tomb in Konya How do I explain it So I keep it in a place insiderdquo he says tapping his heartThat he was playing the character if a chef helped day in and out because he cannot fake his love for cooking and food ldquoModern Love is based on stories of love and not on love stories that sort of appealed to me If you call me a method actor I have been practicing for 25 yearsrdquoIn 2017 Brar signed up for a theatre workshop in Pondicherry by AdiShakti Having been a face on camera by then he wanted to use the learnings to let go of inhibitions ldquoI realised that I was being the same guy in front of the camera with my recipes day in day out It was stifling me The workshop helped me challenge my inhibitions Now I can break into a song on camera or crack silly jokes It is the conditioning that guards our fears We have so many character within us we only have to shed the fear of playing themrdquoNow that the series is set to release he can go back to doing what he does best A recipedriven series featuring heirloom dishes from across the country is on the anvil ldquoIn the lockdown I learnt that if people connect to a dish they will find a way to cook it I want to present dishes I believe the audience needs to interact with Soon I will also launch an online learning course for students to hone their cooking skillsrdquo says Brar who becomes a bit pensive as we speak about the futureldquoAlthough I am a guy who goes with the flow the one thing I am sure about is that Irsquoll move on from this public life at a time I decide earlier than expected and gracefully while having given back most of what I have taken My relationship with food is everlasting but I think we all need to decide when we can reach a point when we switch off our phones for as long as we want God has been kind and itrsquos fair that I pass down the kindness instead of holding onto it longer thanI shouldrdquoBut for now all he can think about is how the audience will react to his first shot at acting ldquoIt would be good to be known as an actor who can act instead of a chef who can actrdquo