Sammir Dattani has had the opportunity to play the most challenging role of an informer in his career in Mani Shankar's Mukhbir.

"Mani Sir was on the look-out for an actor who is fresh but also experienced at the same time because the role of Kailash in Mukhbir was too complex for a new comer. I had loved Mani Sir's films lie 16 December and Tango Charlie.

His kind of genre of films has always been my favorite too", gushes Sammir when I meet him on the eve of the release of Mukhbir for this tête-à-tête at the office of Pyramid Sahara which has produced the film.

Mani Shankar told Sammir that he wanted to make a spy thriller like the Born Identity series and Munich, when he signed him to play the title role in Mukhbir.

Sammir readily agreed to fly down to Hyderabad and spend two weeks with Mani to understand the various nuances of his character. Sammir quips, "Though I was launched by the Rajshris with Uff Kya Jadoo Mohabbat Hai, I consider Mukhbir as my re-launch as an actor."

Mani's brief to Sammir was that his walk should not look heroic though his actions had to look heroic.

Sammir, who has earlier been seen in films like Pyar Mein Twist, Corporate and Life Mein Kabhi Kabhi etc besides Uff Kya Jadoo Mohabbat Hai confesses that he had to unlearn a lot as an actor when he set out to enact his role in Mukhbir since he had to understand the psyche of a person who takes up the most dangerous profession in the world, of an informer.

According to Sammir, Mukhbir, which deals with terrorism, is about unsung heroes in our society. The film sets out to inform the people about the way the underworld and terrorism are interlinked with one another.

Every profession affects one's personal life but truth and lie are like twin brothers in an informer's life who is exposed to danger 24 hours.

It is indeed very sad that in India an informer's life is at peril, whereas in the West, the informers are actually safeguarded with a support system at the back." quips Sammir.

Mani did not want Sammir to look like a hero from any angle. "To get into the character of Kailsah who takes on the identity of Shehzaad Khan, I was given the cheapest of the wardrobes which I purchased myself from a market near Charminar.

Since Mani Sir wanted me to sport a normal hair cut to look like an average college kid, I went to a roadside barber in Hyderabad four times."

Sammir confesses that he interacted with a police informer in Hyderabad. "It was a very brief meeting. I could not have imagined that he could be a police informer if I had met him in a public place because he looked like a college student.

I was told that 90% of the informers take up this profession for the sake of money because of rampant unemployment in our country."

Sammir may not be a hot name as far as Bollywood is concerned, but the sweet young chap whose mother tongue is Gujarati, is quite popular as a star with the screen name Dhyan in Kannada films and has to his credit not one or two but five films in Kannada including his debut film Nanna Preeti Hudgi and Amrita Dhaare in which Amitabh Bachchan had given a special appearance.

Sammir cherishes the experience of having worked with a seasoned actor like Om Puri in Mukhbir.

"To tell you the truth, I was quite apprehensive about working with Omji for the first time since he has a very serious image and is a senior actor.

I was afraid that he would abuse me in front of the entire unit if I went wrong in delivering my chaste Urdu dialogues since I had to speak a lot of Urdu. To my pleasant surprise I realized that Omji is such a giving person who is not selfish as an actor, because he even corrected me in scenes which he felt would work for me in my character."

Sammir is happy with the way his career has progressed. "I feel that my growth as an actor has been tremendous in a short span of time, physically too, thanks to my age partly and experience partly. Since the time I was just a tiny tot of six, I have been doing ads. While I was in college I dabbled in theatre too."

Sammir confesses that his role in Madhur Bhandarkar's Corporate was trimmed. However Sammir, who believes in being practical, says that he has had absolutely no issues at all because in the first place Madhur had informed him that it was a special appearance.

"In any case, I never expected my role in Corporate to turn out to be a path breaking benchmark in my career, the way my role in Mukhbir has."

Besides Mukhbir, the only other film in which Sammir is acting right now is Rajan Waghdare's Love Ka Thadka in which he has been teamed opposite Nauheed Cyrusi.

The film, which is being produced by Sri Adhikari Brothers, is about the problems faced by a newly married young couple in a city like Mumbai as far as procuring accommodation is concerned."