‘Don’t want my roles to be monotonous’

“I don’t want to repeat my characters or roles in my movies. I want that every character played by me should surprise the audience,” said the 41-year-old actor, who was in the city to promote his upcoming film Manjhi: The Mountain Man.

“When a role played by you is a hit in the movie, then the opportunities to play similar characters keep coming,” he said. “After the success of Gangs of Wasseypur I was in big trouble as many directors, producers wanted to present me as a gangster in their movies. But I maintained that I would not do those roles.” 

Manjhi - The Mountain Man is a biopic based on the life of Dashrath Manjhi, popularly known as the Mountain Man, who lived in Gehlaur village, near Gaya, in Bihar. He carved a road through a mountain in 22 years.

The film directed by Ketan Mehta and also starring Radhika <g data-gr-id="31">Apte,</g> will release on August 21.

“Dashrath Manjhi is a character which every actor in this world will love to play,” Siddiqui said.

The Kick actor compared his character with Shah Jahan, who erected the world famous <g data-gr-id="32">monument</g> Taj Mahal. “The way Shah Jahan took 22 years to build Taj Mahal in the memory of his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal, Dashrath Manjhi took the same time and cut the mountain alone for his wife.

“The difference between them is that Shah Jahan was rich enough to build the Taj <g data-gr-id="29">Mahal</g> but Manjhi was so poor that he only had a hammer to cut the mountain.” 

Recently Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan had expressed his desire to work with Siddiqui.