Actor Rahul Bose, a darling of art film directors, is now a busy man in Bollywood doing art-house films, some mainstream cinema and has featured in a Hollywood movie that is slated for release in the United States next month.
He has completed shoot for seven films and the figure would mount to nine by November this year. Quite a good number for the uncrowned king of the country's parallel cinema.
Right now, however, 41-year-old Bose, a former rugby player, is excited about his role in the soon-to-be-released Hindi film "Shaurya" in which he plays the role of an army lawyer who defends a junior officer in court martial, after the latter kills his boss, during a search-and- rescue operation at a border village.
The film, directed by Samar Khan, and also featuring actors Javed Jaffri, Kay Kay Menon and newcomer Minnisha Lamba, is not about warfront battles but a fight for truth and justice and about two close friends who are army officers, says Bose, who was recently here for the premiere of "Shaurya".
What made Bose choose to act in a Samar Khan movie after the director's debut film "Kuch Mithaa Ho Jaye" did not do well at the box office? Well, according to Bose, Hindi cinema has not witnessed a classic court room battle for quite some time. Besides, Khan thinks he would be able to hit the box office this time around, says the actor.
Describing "Shaurya" as a "half art and half commercial" movie, Bose says it deals with an important subject in present-day society that needs to be discussed at length.
Bose agrees that "Shaurya" has a lot of similarities with Hollywood flick"A Few Good Men" starring Tom Cruise but rejects suggestions that the Hindi film is a copy of that.
Bose, who has regaled viewers with his fine performance in art films like Aparna Sen's "Mr and Mrs Iyer", in a movie by Buddhadeb Dasgupta and Dev Benegal's "Split Wide Open", is looking forward to the English film "Before the Rains" which marks Hollywood debut for Indian director Santosh Sivan. The movie will be released in Los Angeles, New York and the United Kingdom next month.
However, Bose is not one of those actors craving for a role in a Hollywood movie and finds Indian directors like Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Sudhir Mishra Dev Benegal and Rituparno Ghosh more interesting.
A Hollywood role is not a good deal to be longed for and it is much better to work for Indian directors. After all, Indian art-house movies are second to none in the world, says the actor, who always gives you the impression that he has gone skin-deep into the role he portrays.
Bose has avoided the pitfalls of going over the top in intensely emotional scenes and his admirable restraint in the portrayal of characters in those sequences has been appreciated by critics. It is not for nothing that "Time" magazine has described the actor as an "art-house superstar".
Bose won national awards for his role in "Mr and Mrs Iyer" and Best Asian Actor award for his performance in "Split Wide Open", the film Dev Benegal directed in 1999.
No wonder, he is one of the most sought-after actors in Indian cinema. Among his forthcoming films are Aparna Sen's "The Japanese Wife", Sivan's "Daastan", Suniel Shetty's "Mumbai Chak Chak", Rajeev Virani's "The Whispers" and Sanjay Chel's"Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam". Even an action film is coming to him, a genre in which he has never featured before.
So, a lot of action in the life of Bose who also remains in media glare even when he is off the big screen through his social activities and participating in debates in studios in television news channels.