Asked to play a 'realistic' cop in his upcoming films, Kapoor has decided to go back to the books literally

Over his long career, veteran actor Anil Kapoor may have played the cop several times, but this time, he has been asked to put in rigorous work to prepare for the role of a policeman in two upcoming films the Roger Donaldson-directed Hollywood project, Cities and Sanjay Gupta's Shootout At Wadala.

In fact, to get his character correct, Kapoor has been recommended a novel idea to read Vikram Chandra's 2006 novel, Sacred Games which has a policeman character named Sartaj Singh.

A source said, "Through Sartaj Singh's character, Anil will be able to get a bird's eye view of Mumbai and its police force.

A friend (Sanjay Gupta) suggested that Anil read the novel before playing the cop in Donaldson's film." The novel has reportedly helped Kapoor understand the way the law-enforcement machinery functions in Mumbai.

While Kapoor remained unavailable for comment, Gupta said, "Yes, Anil is using the novel to prepare for his characters in the Hollywood film and my project too.

With due respect to Anil's body of work, he rarely played a realistic character. He has played cop roles before but never one based on a real policeman.

I suggested he read up on Sartaj Singh's character." Kapoor is going through portions marked out by Gupta, where Singh's character appears.

Incidentally, Chandra is the brother-in-law of one of Kapoor's favourite directors, Vidhu Vinod Chopra.