I wanted a good body that would last long: Shreyas

Shreyas Talpade on why he needed to get himself a brand new look, in a chat with Roshni K Olivera.Shreyas Talpade's sporting a new look these days. The actor, with his freshly-acquired six-pack physique, is set for a new image. "It's a lot of hard work," he tells us. BT spoke to him at length about his fitness regime, choice of movies and more...

So you've joined the six-pack bandwagon... It was high time! I was being a little lazy, but finally I decided to get up and do it. It's not for a particular film. Just that I figured that in our industry along with talent, you need a good physique to present yourself. People perceive you differently. So I set a deadline for myself and decided that by my birthday I should have a decent enough physique. I managed that, but I still have a long way to go. It's not about six packs, it's about having a good body that will last long. I admire Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar and more recently Ajay Devgn who've been consistently into fitness. Also somebody like Dharam paaji who has always been so fit with a body to die for.

So, you had to make a lot of changes in your day-to-day life to get here... Yes! I enjoy home-made food, but my diet had to change. It was just boiled vegetables, chicken and egg whites. My wife reached a point where she stopped eating eggs! There are two ways of doing it - taking the easy way with supplements or the difficult route. I preferred the latter to make it last long. I worked out for one-and-a-half to two hours and now it's become a part of my routine.

Where do you see yourself in the current scenario in Bollywood? I'm happy to have done films with some good filmmakers. There was a certain perception about me, which is now changing. I believe that if you want to to score a century you need to keep playing and taking your one's and two's before you go for the big ones. Now I'm preparing myself for the big runs (smiles).

Do you feel somewhere you have got slotted in the comedy genre? Coming from a serious film like Iqbal, to be slotted in the comedy genre is a compliment. But I have some interesting roles that I'm doing. In the future too, I'm looking to play a range of roles and explore different genre. I don't want to take myself too seriously. I just want to do good films.