Why did you take a two years-long hiatus before returning with Ladies Special on Sony and now with Sonu Sweety?
In my 13-year-long television career, I have made at least half a dozen comebacks. I like to take a break every now and then—it helps reinvent oneself and it’s always good fun to sit back, watch lots of television and movies and take it easy.

And did that help?
Indeed. The first day on the sets of Ladies Special, I was actually nervous. I found myself forgetting my lines and it felt as if I had forgotten acting. But this very feeling made me put in more effort into my character and approach it differently.

In Sonu Sweety, you play husband to Shweta Kawatra’s character Sweety, who keeps getting herself into trouble. What about you?
The show is the story of a Punjabi couple where the wife, Sweety—the lady of the house— never having seen high society, has a very vague idea of it. So, to emulate that, she wants everything that the neighbours have. My character Sonu is busy dealing with her demands. And then there are the regular disagreements of the domestic couple.

Sonu Sweety also reunites you with Kawatra, whom you also worked with in DD’s Soni Mahiwal. How is it working together again?
Shweta and I go back a long time and have been great friends throughout. So when we came to the sets, we didn’t have to look for chemistry in the writing—it was already there. I am sure it will show on screen.

Did you agree to do the show because you wanted to experiment with the comedy genre?
I have done serious roles and even played grey characters. I, like any actor, would like to experiment with comedy but often producers think that an actor who has done serious characters won’t do comedy. I got this opportunity with Sonu Sweety.

But comedy in India is mostly slapstick in nature.
India somehow never grew in terms of humour. It is probably the lack of good writers—20 years ago, we had highly-educated writers with a literary bent of mind writing television shows. But then, that was probably because 20 years ago, only the upper classes could afford a television set in their house. Today, everyone has at least one set. So I guess the content today has to cater to the masses. And hence we are stuck with slapstick.

If you are so critical of slapstick, why did you agree to do the show?
No, I am not critical of slapstick—please understand that it is, after all, a form of entertainment. And Sonu Sweety has good one liners and good comic timing. It will survive on good dialogues, direction and performances.