“It’s been hectic; I am rehearsing continuously plus I’m shooting,” says the 26-year-old, currently completing Sudhir Mishra’s Tera Kya Hoga Johnny. The actor wears a blue sweater that’s perfectly suited for his action-packed dance rehearsal sessions. He gets his moves correct before a wall-to-wall mirror in his drawing room, even as he answers my questions.

Post Johnny Gaddaar, playback singer Nitin Mukesh’s son shot to prominence and promise with corporate producers like Adlabs Films and Percept Picture Company roping him in for multiple film deals—there is also news of an offer from Yash Raj Films, but Mukesh will not confirm this. “To be honest, the attention I received initially was because of my family background. But I was confident that JG will be a great film,” says the actor who faced the camera for the first time at four, for movies likeYash Chopra’s Vijay and Raman Kumar’s Jaisi Karni Waisi Bharni.

Although his debut film was a sleeper hit, all of the awards for best debutante were taken away by Ranbir Kapoor, whose hyped film Saawariya failed to make a box-office ripple. “Ranbir is like my brother and there is no competition from him,” Mukesh says. “We are from two renowned film families and are in the same profession.”

Besides impressive histrionics, Mukesh is a pianist and songwriter too. “I had always wanted to act, but for a while I even considered becoming a playback singer. It took a while to sort out the confusion.” Now Mukesh loves the greasepaint more than anything else. “I have grown up loving all kinds of movies and want to act in all genres,” he adds. Mukesh also dabbled as an AD for Yash Raj Films before taking up acting.

In Mishra’s TKHJ, he plays a boy from Ahmedabad who lands up in Mumbai after losing his family in the Gujarat riots. Mukesh has proved he can do offbeat and serious cinema with JG, but he says he’s now keen on something more glamorous. “I’m going to do a love story soon,” he says.

Mukesh has also signed up by Madhur Bhandarkar for Percept and an Eros International production titled Freeze, to be directed by debutant director Jehangir Surti. “I’m a very simple person and will continue to remain so even if I become hugely successful,” he says of his soaring popularity and career graph.