It has been two weeks since Citadel: Honey Bunny dropped online. While the Varun Dhawan and Samantha Ruth Prabhu-led spy thriller has received mixed reviews, the audience largely agrees on one thing – that Saqib Saleem is impressive as the antagonist KD. “It’s a little overwhelming when you don’t think of something too much and then that starts giving you love,” starts the actor, when we sit across from him for a chat. He continues, "This is like a proper massy binge show. Which is why we started watching OTT, right? I had the most fun with the action. The action. Because as young boys, we`ve all grown up wanting to be action heroes, right? So when you get to do cool stuff, you really feel cool when you come back to your vanity van after you`ve done a scene. You feel exhausted, of course. But also just feeling like, ‘oh, I`ve done something awesome’. That child in you gets very happy.”

To him, joining the Prime Video series was a no-brainer as it gave him the opportunity to team up with director duo Raj-DK, who also co-wrote it with Sita Menon. “What I really enjoyed about them is that they`re very collaborative people. They give actors the respect that, hey, we`ve cast you for a part. You exactly know what you`re supposed to do. We`ve cast you because you`re good. And they`re not one of those directors who tell you how you should act. They just set the scene for you well. And whenever you give some feedback to them, they`re not very reactive people. So when you give them feedback, it may just feel like, did I say the right thing or did I make sense at all? But when the material comes back to you, you see traces of your discussion. This is why they are people who`ve done so much quality work. It`s very heartening to see that even after having such success, you`re so collaborative and wanting to hear what the other person has to say. We were an eclectic bunch. Kay Kay Menon is a masterclass. You will read a line on script and you`re like, okay, we`ll do it like this. But he just finds this new, organic way to do it. And he would surprise you so much with his performance. Both me and Varun, in fact, we used to just keep looking at him. He is so much in sync with himself and his craft. The beauty of Varun is his excitement and the fact that he is still the same man. He still committed. He still wants to do one more take and do better. You enjoy when people really want to work. He feels like if you`re taking one more shot, he could do better. And that attitude, I really love it. Because he`s also had an interesting body of work behind him. And he`s had his share of successes. But that thing hasn`t diminished in him. That he really wants to give his best. Then we had Samantha. Who I`ve met for the first time she`s a firecracker. I have so much love and respect for her. Because of course she was going through what she was otherwise. But at no point that became an excuse. It was like this big set is here to do this action piece and we`ll pull it off. So I genuinely learned that about her and how to just keep going. I made good friends with Sikandar on this. To a point that I asked him to act in a film that I was producing. Everybody came in with that mindset: let`s have fun, let’s do good.”