/> "I've always had more gay fans than a female following," says Sushant Singh who's blissfully heterosexual in real life, married to a pretty Manipuri dancer with two kids.

"That's that acting is all about. You suppresss and finally eradicate your own personality and preferences to surrender to the audience. And I've always connected with homosexual audiences.

In fact when I was a totally unknown face in Delhi doing theatre, my first admirer turned out to be gay. At first I was flattered by the attention he was lavished on me.

Then I began to understand his intentions. I told him, 'Dude, I like you, and I love your attentions. But I just don't swing that way.' I eventually had to disappear on him to escape his amorous advances."

The character re-surfaced in a queer way recently when Sushant used his first admirer's personality to play the red-hot evil and ruthless gangster in Mani Shankar's espionage thriller Mukhbiir who keeps hitting on the innocent hero Sammir Dattani.

Reveals Sushant, "To make the character bi- sexual was entirely my idea. Why are we so afraid of homosexuality? It's a way of life, and we need to look at at it that way.

I suggested to our director Mani that we make my character sexually ambiguous, so there's an interesting sexual triangle in the film. My girl keeps hitting on Sammir's character while I keep hitting on him."

Sushant hopes his male gay fan-following multiplies after Mukhbiir. "I've no qualms about being a gay or heterosexual fantasy."

Sushant also gets ready to play a ruthless newshound in Mahesh Bhatt's media expose Showbiz to be directed by Saroj Khan's son Raju Khan. Sushant has a couple of high-profile senior journalists in mind as role models. "But finally it would be my interpretation of the way the paparazzi conducts itself."