Among Harshvardhan Rane‘s standout roles are ‘Sanam Teri Kasam’, ‘Haseen Dillruba’, and ‘Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat’, with the latter turning into an unexpected box-office success last year. Notably, across all these romantic dramas, he portrayed leading men with an intense, aggressive edge, a pattern that led several viewers to brand his characters as toxic. He’s now moving away from that typecast image to take on full-fledged action roles. His upcoming projects include ‘Police Company’, which is currently in production, and ‘Force 3’. In Police Company, he portrays a police officer inspired by the real Mumbai encounter specialist Daya Nayak, while in ‘Force 3’, he takes on the role of a morally ambiguous villain opposite John Abraham.
Harshvardhan Rane on not wanting to be stereotyped
For Harshvardhan, breaking free from a single-note image matters. “I don’t want to be stereotyped as just a romantic hero. I’m doing Force 3 and Police Company where I get to do action,” he tells News18. He openly admires Ram Gopal Varma and is excited about the collaboration, despite the director’s reputation among industry insiders as someone who’s tough to work with on set. Talking about his experience, he said, “I didn’t feel so. I’ve been shooting with him for over a week now. He has been very nice to me. So, if someone asks me if he’s a taskmaster, I won’t be able to relate to that word. Let me put it this way… If you love geniuses, you won’t consider sir a taskmaster”.“If you’re sitting with a real artist, you aren’t supposed to have a structure. You’ve to be okay with a free-flowing work environment. I’m okay with such people. I love such people. I feel such a pull towards his creative juices. He’s someone who follows great grammar and then unfollows it immediately. I love that kind of creative pull and push. I love tension, I love undercurrents,” he further added.
Harshvardhan Rane says he hasn’t seen RGV’s controversial side
Addressing RGV’s tendency to stir up controversy with his bold, unfiltered social media posts, Harshvardhan responds, “I’m not on Twitter. Luckily, I haven’t been exposed to that side of sir even though I often hear people talk about it. All I can say is that I love what sir thinks about the grammar of filmmaking. I’ll always keep that in my heart. I can’t write a book on it. It can’t be defined.” His bond with John Abraham, meanwhile, dates back much further. Back in 2004, their paths first crossed when Harshvardhan was working as a delivery boy in Delhi. “It’s a full circle. It’s extremely cinematic and poetic. I’m always short of words when I think about it. This is beyond a Chat-GPT script. There was a boy who delivered a helmet to a big star and 20 years later, is sharing a frame with him in a film,” he remarks.“How can one even write a script like this? It’s just beyond dreams. That’s why I’ve always believed that AI can’t write replicate or supercede what really happens in life. The truth is always stronger than AI,” adds Harshvardhan, who previously teamed up with John on ‘Tara vs Bilal’, a project on which the actor also came on board as producer.
