Abhishek Kapoor: So He Dated Twinkle Khanna. Get Over It.

Why is Abhishek Kapoor the Filter Man for September? Did the girls in the office use up their ‘You’ve gotta do this one for us’ card? Yes and No. We’d by lying if we said they haven’t been swooning over what he looks like (but we’ve got a beard too – so frankly we don’t get what the silly girls are on about). The Associate Publisher even one of her team a piece of her mind because he didn’t know who Abhishek Kapoor was.

Our reasons though, are a little different. He was jetting off to Brazil the evening of the interview to shoot on Fear Factor 3 with the drool-worthy Priyanka Chopra – but that isn’t it. He dated Twinkle Khanna – but even that is not it. Abhishek Kapoor is here for Rock On and Rock On alone. It’s been close to two years, but Rock On is so closely stuck to Kapoor’s name it threatens to become a part of it. Actually it already has.

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But before that – Fear Factor 3. Which brings us to the original question that we were thinking about while doing this interview– Mard ko dard hota hai? We don’t think so – but we’d rather not test out our endurance limits in a boot camp broadcasted on national TV, but then that’s just us. Kapoor is all set to test it out on live TV before a hot as hell Priyanka Chopra. He thinks whether it will hurt on not depends on whether he comes back laughing or crying.

So what made him do the show? Kapoor insists he wasn’t thinking when he said yes to doing it. “I didn’t think about it, if I had, I probably wouldn’t have done it. It was more of an impulsive decision,” he says. But he has psyched himself into the zone by watching earlier contestants on Fear Factor eat “creepy crawlies” (we just call them Protein).

Competing with him on the show this time is a significantly large chunk of bollywood actor/model types and Cyrus Broacha (for comic timing we’re sure).

But everything else apart, till the time Kapoor wins Fear Factor 3 which he thinks he will, we’re still going to talk about Rock On.

The essential guy flick that stuck its foot in the door for other guy movies like Wake Up Sid, I Hate Love Stories – movies that moved out of the notion of the stereotypical Mard Ko Dard Nahin Hota phase (we haven’t). The heroes were no longer action heroes who could take down a whole battalion (a whole country in the case of Sunny Deol) with their bare hands and rip off tank turrets.

“I try not to be attached to it, but Rock On has definitely become a part of who I am…with all the response and the critical acclaim.” Most others would have been happy, but this one does things a little different. He wants to distance himself from Rock On and is trying hard not to get too attached to what is inarguably an essential guy movie of the times we live in.

Are we idol worshippers? Not really. But we did like the music. But much more than that we liked the fact that it was unpretentious, did not try too hard and we loved the music (wait we said that already). Of course, when Arjun Rampal is on his way to the airport in a flight after having left the band, the taxi driver changes the radio station, he hears the song and arrives back in time for a grand re-union on the stage – it reminded us of Jhankar Beats. But that still doesn’t change a thing.

Kapoor is one of those people who have bounced back faster than a crazy ping pong ball, we’d have called him a survivor had the show not been as puke worthy as it is, he started off as an actor in a movie, no one would want to remember (Uff! Yeh Mohabbat). He made a movie that he felt intensely passionate about and the audience didn’t (Aryan) and then he made Rock On. “Even when I made Aryan I felt very strongly about it – I needed to make that movie. When I made Rock On – I would have been shattered if I didn’t make it,” Kapoor says.

Up next for him is a movie based on Chetan Bhagat’s book ‘Three mistakes of My Life’ a movie that he can not talk about just now. He does however say that the movie is 50 to 60 percent different than the book – but the essence is the same. So Mr Bhagat can put a freeze on the pilferage crying press conference invites.

From the September 2010 issue of FHM India.