Ruslaan Mumtaz doesn’t want to be ‘a sexual clip on someone’s phone’
With the outburst of “complex, creative and bold content” in the digital space, many actors are stepping out of their comfort zone by taking up these challenging parts. Actor Ruslaan Mumtaz, however, has made a conscious choice to not take up roles that fall into the category of “bold content” and that’s one of the reasons why he turned down a lot of offers that came his way.
“If there’s some sexual content, I point blank say no to the makers. That’s because if I can’t tell my parents to watch my show that’s bold in nature, there’s no point in doing it. I’ll also have a child some day, and I don’t want my kids to see such content that has me in it,” says the actor, adding,“Maybe, it’ll just bring me some money, but what will I do with it? I’m from a family that is financially secure and I never really work for money.”
He feels that bold content is mostly used to titillate the audience, and some people share the clips of such scenes on messaging platforms. “I’ve seen people who exchange these sexual clips from web shows and they get widely circulated on WhatsApp groups. I don’t want to be a sexual clip on somebody’s phone,” says the actor, who will be next seen in an international film Namaste Wadala and a period war drama.
Having worked on his body, the 37-year-old also gets a lot of offers for roles wherein he’s required to go shirtless. He says, “There’s no such rule or criteria for getting big and substantial roles. There are so many actors who’ve done fantastically well without six-pack abs, be it Rajkummar Rao or Ayushmann Khurrana. I workout to be physically fit and not just to get work.”
Sangeeta Yadav