With his 'hispanic' looks, and a physique to match, he seems every bit an 'archetypical' international star whose popularity goes beyond the confines of the Indian sub-continent, running across several countries in Europe and North America.

Accolades at the international level have been pouring in for John Abraham over the last few years - after the tremendous Global acclaim that the actor received for his work in Deepa Mehta's 'Water', which made a round of several International film festivals last year and has also been send to the Oscar's as Canada's entry for the Best Foreign film category this year, now comes the adulation for his latest film 'Kabul Express', which screened to an excellent response at the Toronto film festival a few months ago.

For this adorable hunk, whose act as the 'cool and stylish' thief in Sanjay Gadhvi's 'Dhoom' two years ago had already earned him a huge fan following in India and abroad, representing India on the Global platform as in 'Water' and now 'Kabul Express', has given him an altogether ecstatic feeling.

''It is great to represent India on the global format -first with 'Water', which opened the Toronto International festival last year and now 'Kabul Express', which was screened at the festival this year,'' John said. ''It was great to know that even as we went for 'Kabul Express', people there still recognise you for 'Water','' he added.

John feels that a film like 'Kabul Express' was specially an ideal one to represent India on the international platform.

''It is great that a movie like 'Kabul Express' has gone global simply because very few people know that it is the only movie to be completely shot in Afghanistan post the Taliban regime. No movie has been shot there,'' John Abraham told here on the eve of release of the film next week. The movie, directed by renowned documentary filmmaker Kabir Khan, received an overwhelming response when it was screened at Toronto International festival.

Stating that before the movie released in Toronto, there was an apprehension as to how the North American press would react to the film trivialising a serious situation like the 9/11 John said,'' all apprehensions were belied as the two screenings of the film - one for the North American audience and the other for the Asian audience, predominantly Pakistani, Afghani and Indian-received an overwhelming response.

''Infact, there was a standing ovation after both the screenings,''he added.

John said he did 'Kabul Express' purely for the opportunity to experience first hand life in the turbulent land of Afghanistan which till now he had seen only on news channels.

''I remember Kabir Khan coming with this script and telling me that he was an award documentary filmmaker and that the movie was based loosely on his personal life and called 'Kabul Express'.

The minute he said 'Kabul Express', I thought about Afghanistan. I said wow this is an opportunity to go to a land that you have only seen on CNN and BBC but may be I would get a different perspective to what is happening there once I go there. I read the script and before he reached home told him that I wanted to do the movie,'' John said.