You have read and heard all the praise. Was there any criticism levelled against you? Did you read any of that?
A critic ultimately is just one person so I tend to check out a lot of blogs online to get a better idea. Hundreds put their opinion on blogs and a lot of people really didn't like my work, which is completely understandable - lot of people said I make funny faces, which I do and a lot of people said I have thick eyebrows, which again I do. You can't really argue with these things.

So do you just sort of take it in the right spirit?
Ya, am not going to argue and say 'my eyebrows are perfectly fine'.

Who are the upcoming actors that you admire? Whose work have you really liked?
Ranbir. Definitely. He's great. He's got that easy charm and charisma which his dad has. And he is an incredible dancer, which I am very envious of because I can't dance to save my life.

So then the song, Pappu can't dance was about you?
I have always had my suspicions but Abbas has never admitted it openly.

You have this great interest in Hollywood movies. You are an avid movie buff. Tell us about that.
You know funnily enough, up until three years ago, I didn't watch Hindi movies. I started watching them only because I was joining the industry, because I figured I should know the work of my contemporaries and of those before me. So up until that point, it was only Hollywood.

Is there a film that you have seen which made you wish it was made in your time just so you could be a part of it - foreign or Indian?
Rebel Without A Cause. I am a huge James Dean fan. Huge. I love him. Somewhere I think at the back of mind that I had heard this was a very famous, popular film, but I was expecting that since it is from the fifties, it is probably very dated. I was 18 when I saw the film and I think the character is about 17 or 18 years old in the film and I could relate to it. It was not dated at all. It was as relevant to today as it was to 50 years ago.

You are a trained bartender. You have to tell us what, when, where, why?
Have you seen a movie called Cocktail? It's not the greatest movie, but it's great fun and after watching that, I must have been 13 or 14 at the time, I was like, 'aah, I got to learn how to do that'. While I was in LA, after I finished film school, I was looking for a way to get a job and make some money - while I was looking for a real job making films - and a friend of mine joined this bartender's training institute and he was having a blast and he told me about it. It turned out that he was the guy who trained Tom Cruise for his role in Cocktail. So I went in and did the course. It was a very intensive course.

You have a filmmaking degree. What kind of films would you like to make? Do you see yourself going in that direction eventually?
Ya, absolutely. I don't know when because I haven't put a timeline to it, but I have realised that inherently, you have to make a film that entertains. It can have serious tones to it, but it has to be engaging. But I am not going to limit myself to a genre. It is quite early.