Arjun Bijlani on Films: “I was offered a lot of roles but I felt I deserved better”

Arjun Bijlani start­ed out as a pop­u­lar face on the small screen with shows like Remix and Left Right Left and has been mak­ing his pres­ence felt on real­i­ty tele­vi­sion for quite some time. He has now fol­lowed in Ran­nvi­jay Sing­ha’s foot­steps as Sun­ny Leone’s co-host of dat­ing real­i­ty show MTV Splitsvil­la Sea­son 14. Hav­ing host­ed every­thing from Dance Dee­wane to Indi­a’s Got Tal­ent, the actor is con­fi­dent he has the matu­ri­ty to pull it off. He promis­es to be him­self and bring his own fla­vor to the show. Arjun just won the final sea­son of the adven­ture real­i­ty show, how­ev­er, Kha­tron Ke Khi­la­di is in no mood to take part in one like Bigg Boss any­time soon.

In an inter­view with Hin­dus­tan Times, Arjun spoke about host­ing a dat­ing show for the first time and that there’s more to it than just explain­ing the rules of the game. He also shared his rea­sons for not ven­tur­ing into films in a big way. Excerpts:

How would Splitsvil­la be dif­fer­ent for you than the oth­er shows you’ve host­ed before?

There you main­ly inter­act with the audi­ence, have fun and play along with the emo­tions. Any­one can explain the rules of the game. Splitsvil­la is about the con­ver­sa­tions you have with the can­di­dates as you embark on their dat­ing issues. Rather, it is a respon­si­bil­i­ty to care for and under­stand their prob­lems and to guide them. It’s like Salman Khan host­ing Bigg Boss. Some­times things get a lit­tle out of hand, peo­ple get aggres­sive and they have to real­ize that this isn’t the right way. Some­times you have to play that role as well as a host.

Does being mar­ried help host Splitsvilla?

Of course, per­son­al expe­ri­ence also helps. I’ve been in a rela­tion­ship the longest. So I under­stand rela­tion­ships bet­ter than some­one who just start­ed. This is about ide­al match­es and I’ve already found my ide­al match. No rela­tion­ship is per­fect and every rela­tion­ship has its ups and downs, we all learn from our mis­takes and grow in a relationship.

Have you already start­ed work­ing in sync with your co-host Sun­ny Leone?

In a day or two, me and Sun­ny hit the right chord. We were hav­ing fun and chill­ing. At first you came with a lot of inhi­bi­tions, and then I start­ed enjoy­ing with Sun­ny and the can­di­dates. It was amaz­ing and felt like I had host­ed it for sev­er­al seasons.

They’ve done all kinds of real­i­ty shows. Will you ever join Bigg Boss?

No I do not think so. From today’s per­spec­tive, def­i­nite­ly no. I’m in a good posi­tion and I don’t think I need to do Bigg Boss right now.

Do you also work on films?

I was part of some screen­play nar­ra­tives. I was recent­ly offered a good show so I’m think­ing about it too. I’ll know bet­ter in a month or two.

You don’t make films because of a lack of cov­et­ed offers or because you are so well received on TV and OTT?

The TV shows I was on ran for three to four years, so I did­n’t have time. Now I have the time because I haven’t done this TV fic­tion for a few years. Then the pan­dem­ic was there for 2.5 years. After every­thing opened up I also made Kha­tron Ke Khi­la­di, IGT and Roohaniy­at and now Splitsvil­la. Also in terms of a good screen­play some­thing should come off. I was offered many roles to play but felt I deserved bet­ter. I’ll get my debt some­day, but I don’t want to make a choice that I would lat­er say, ‘why did I choose this and not that’. Some­times we have to wait for the right time.

Have you been in a sit­u­a­tion where you weren’t giv­en the pri­or­i­ty of being a TV actor over a film actor?

No one has told me that per­son­al­ly, but I’m sure a lot of peo­ple in the indus­try must be think­ing that way. I just want to say that tele­vi­sion has always been great and will always be great. It’s very youth­ful to think like that, because art has noth­ing to do with the medi­um. If some­one is a good actor, then they are a good actor. South movies are doing so well these days, we see that because we like them as actors and the movies they make. That does­n’t make any­one less capa­ble or less tal­ent­ed. Actors should be treat­ed like actors; we should not cat­e­go­rize them as TV or film actors.