Sammir Dattani, who got noticed after his disastrous debut in a cameo in Madhur Bhandarkar's 'Corporate' does not believe in segregating characters because he feels 'a character is as good as the film is successful'.

He justifies his point by saying, "If I do a film that has me playing a genie and the film is a hit, people will say I did the wisest thing by opting for a fantasy character but if that films flops, I'll be dissuaded from doing such a role again. Hence, I do not harbour any such reservations. I take up a role if it appeals to me and if I feel it suits me, irrespective of what genre it belongs to."

Speaking enthusiastically about his power hungry role of Jai Gokhale in Vikram Bhatt's youth-caper 'Life Mein Kabhi Kabhi', Sammir says it is not typically a romantic film or a campus caper.

"It looks at the real issues of today's youth through the eyes of five youngsters at a stage in life, five years after graduation. These youngsters have accumulated some amount of worldly experience in these five years, based on which, they have consolidated their own notions about what they'd like to do to find happiness in their lives.

Hence, while one feels that he'd like to marry a girl of his choice, another feels he'd like to make a lot of money to do the same."

His character of Jai Gokhale is of a boy who has faced situations wherein he was pushed around because he was powerless to fight back the powers-that-be. Hence, he decides to become the most powerful person he can become and what he gains and loses in that pursuit is what his role is all about.

Denying that it is a chocolate boy character that he is famous for, Sammir says it is not a typical romantic role. He says that the character of Jai Gokhale is set in a period where he has had his fair share of heartaches. The film focuses on Jai's life after that.

Sammir sure did have a whale of a time on the sets with his co-stars Dino Morea, Nauheed Cyrusi, Aftab Shivdasani, Anjorie Alagh andAnuuj Sawhney, who are also young. Director Vikram Bhatt 'is a very chilled out guy and he allowed us all liberties, which we took complete advantage of!'

The team played pranks on unsuspecting victims, gossiped and chatted around.

"We also used to have this huge debate of town v/s suburbs, where I and Anjorie Alagh who are townies would be pitted against Anuuj Sawhney, Dino Morea and Nauheed who are from the suburbs whereas Aftab Shivdasani who has houses in both the parts of Mumbai would be sandwiched in between!

That was a lot of fun but more than that, what we most enjoyed was when Dino used to make caricatures of all of us. He's a pro at making hilarious caricatures!"

The actor is 'earnestly waiting for Mukhbir,' where he plays the central role of the mukhbir i.e the spy. He is confident that the audience will see him in a new light in that film. He also has Marathon coming up very soon.

Did he take up Mukhbir to be near his rumoured lady-love Raima Sen? Sammir quickly jumps to his defence by vehemently denying any such relation with the actress. Using the age-old cliché 'Raima is a great buddy', the actor says it is a figment of imagination that he has signed up the film to be near Raima.

Though Sammir claims to come from a liberal family, he says it gets awkward to explain things to his folks back home.

He admits his career has not been a smooth ride. He expected his very first film to do well but it did not. Sammir has become used to ups and downs of life. - Reshma Kulkarni (SAMPURN)