At a time when actors opt to do one film a year, this is your fifth in 2018. Are you exhausted?
When you have interesting characters coming your way, fatigue doesn't even feature in the scheme of things. I'm on my toes and there's a spring in my walk. I have slogged to get these parts. Manmarziyaan is the last movie of the year.

Your film Mulk was widely appreciated. Were you surprised by the response it received?
It released with three other movies [Fanney Khan, Karwaan and Vishwaroop 2] and had a polarising subject, but I expected it to work. I am not 'conventional' in the regular terms, but I am not an indie or off-beat actor, call me new-age. Mulk was a massy film and I chose it because I am a commercial movie-watching audience. My choice of films is based on my middle-class mindset — will I spend Rs 200 and two and a half hours on a film? I am not a cinema student. I am a Hindi movie audience and prefer a paisa vasool movie any day. Like me, people's idea of what is gratifying at the theatres has changed too. It no longer means singing and dancing around trees. A film needs depth to be enjoyed by the conscientious thinking society. I may be politically unaware, but the subject of Mulk was not alien to me. It's the hard reality of our times and showing it on screen is bound to get people to the theatres. The film was a brave subject and I was sold on the intention.