‘I don’t understand when people say I am hot or sexy’

His weight might be a much-discussed subject online but it doesn’t bother 39-year-old Ram Kapoor in the least. After all, his career is on a high and women are talking about his ‘sex appeal’. TV czarina Ekta Ram went so far as to dub him the ‘TV version of Katrina Kaif’ for the women audience. “The popularity of Bade Achhe Lagte Hain has gone through the roof. I don’t understand it when people say I am hot or sexy. I can understand if someone talks about my personality or acting skills, but ‘good’ looks... Ekta was referring to the fact that clearly, women like looking at me,” he says with a laugh. 

Ram is comfortable in his own skin and he believes this is a reason why the audience has accepted him. “I am very happy being compared to an Amjad Khan or Sanjeev Kumar who were overweight all their career and still earned so much respect. I am getting good work just the way I am. I don’t want to be the coolest-looking guy in the room. I don’t want a six-pack. I am happy indulging in food and living my life,” he reiterates.

While he is not superstitious, Ram says that if he was, he would think of the extra kilos as a ‘lucky charm’. “For a long period of my career, I was really fit. I even had a six-pack. But my career went nowhere. Look at me today. There are thousands of very fit actors in the industry but name five who look like me. If some wants this (points to himself) personality, size and dynamic, there aren’t so many people out there,” he says.

Ram’s career is on a high but there is no getting away from the fact that he is being offered film roles older than him. So, in his latest release Mere Dad Ki Maruti, he plays the father of a teenager. “It doesn’t really matter to me,” he says, explaining, “A character actor’s career lasts a lot longer than a leading man’s. A hero after age 40-50 will have to become a character actor. Today, Anil Kapoor or Mr Bachchan are character actors. Very soon, the Khans will too become character actors. If I am good, I will continue to get work even when I am 70-80.”  

The bad news for everyone who likes Ram just the way he is is that the actor does plan to lose weight eventually. “Being fat is not cool. I have repeatedly said that I would want to lose weight for my health and my children. For my career, luckily, I don’t need to,” says Ram.

For now, though Ram is very excited about Mere Dad Ki Maruti. “Pretty much everything my son is doing in this film; I have done as a teenager. Other than the fact that this is a YRF project, this is what attracted me to the film,” he says about the father-son comedy.

Ram sees shades of his relationship with his father ‘in almost every scene of this film’. “When I was growing up, as far as my father was concerned, I could do no right and my sister could do no wrong. She was treated like a princess and still is,” Ram says. Talking about his relation with his father, Ram says, “It was a torturous relationship. I thought my dad was too strict and too demanding. I just couldn’t please him. Today we are buddies. But it has been a long journey. While I was a teenager, I was an idiot who should have never been born. When I wanted to act, dad thought I wanted to act only because I wasn’t qualified to do anything else. After I slogged it out and reached where I have, he now has to give me the respect.”

Ram is quick to point out that he is partially to be blamed for their tenuous relationship. “I did everything he didn’t want me to do. I dropped out of college, didn’t do an MBA like he wanted me to, stole and banged-up his car,” says Ram.

So, what kind of a father is Ram to his daughter Sita and son Aks? “I am a madcap father. My daughter is seven and my son is four years old. When I am with them, I become like them. As they grow, I hope to be the kind of father who is their buddy, who they can confide in.”