NEW DELHI:

Cerebral actor Rahul Bose says his recent performances in commercial movies are not a conscious effort to prove wrong critics who think he is suited only for art-house cinema.

“I don’t have to prove anything to anybody,” Bose said. “Just when people say Rahul Bose only does art-house cinema, you’ll find me doing something different like Pyaar Ke Side Effects and Chain Kulii... I don’t care what people think abo-ut me. I love doing different films. Put me wherever and I will try to do my best.”

The 39-year-old actor, who enthralled audiences with his performance as a Muslim man in Mr and Mrs Iyer and as an intellectual who is torn by guilt for leaving his girlfriend at a time she needed him the most in 15 Park Avenue, made his acting debut in 1994 with English August. His forthcoming film Chain Kulii Ki Main Kulii will see him play the role of the Indian cricket captain trying to pull out his team from a bad patch.

Bose, whose directorial venture Everybody Says I’m Fine in 2001 earned him the reputation of a thinking director, said he would direct a film Moth Smoke, based on a novel by Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid that deals with an extra-marital affair in contemporary Pakistan. The versatile actor is also doing two other films: The Japanese Wife, which narrates a long distance romance between a Japanese girl and an Indian school teacher, and Santosh Sivan’s Before the Rains, which portrays an intimate friendship between an Englishman and a Malayali villager.

Bose added he wanted to do roles that he has never attempted before. “I want to do action films because I want to explore that genre. I think I can do it.”