By Ruchika Kher
New Delhi, Oct 28 (IANS) As an actor he loves to experiment and as he turns producer with “Basra”, Abhay Deol promises to be high on content. He says the action thriller will not only keep audiences on the edge of their seats but also make them think.

“There are three genres — romance, comedy and action. They are mainstream inherently; so what I’m doing is taking a commercial genre and within it experimenting a little bit,” Abhay told IANS in an interview.

The film is going on the floors early next year. Abhay has roped in Navdeep Singh of “Manorama Six Feet Under” to helm the project that will feature him along with Shahana Goswami and another girl whose name has been kept secret.

” ‘Basra’ is high on content, but a good dose of action sequences will make it edgy and pretty dark as well. In other words, it is a mainstream movie but also has something that will make people think and keep them on the edge of their seats,” he said.

“The thing about action films is that they are high on drama in terms of action sequences, have songs and other things, but content is secondary. For me, the idea was to get something that has content so that the action has some meaning. That’s when ‘Basra’ came in,” he added.

The 32-year-old was launched by his uncle Dharmendra with “Socha Na Tha” in 2005. He then went on to prove his mettle with films like “Ahista Ahista”, “Manorama Six Feet Under”, “Ek Chalis Ki Last Local”, “Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd” and more recently “Dev D”.

When asked what motivated him to don the producer’s hat, Abhay revealed: “I had bad experiences in the past, with ‘Manorama…’ being the classic example where the director did his job - he made it well, actors gave their level best but when it was the producer’s turn to distribute and market the film, it was nowhere to be seen.

“Not just ‘Manorama…’, I had been through this for some of my other films too. I realised that I need to protect my films because the director will move on, the producer will move on too but as an actor I will be considered a flop if things will not work.

“I also realised I need to protect myself,” he explained.

Along with that he also wanted to give a platform to new and dynamic directors to make films that have quality content.

“The idea was also to provide platform to filmmakers to make the kind of movies they want to make — probably high on content, low on budget. Let’s see where the formula goes and then I will take it from there,” said the actor, who was in the capital to attend the 11th Osian’s Cinefan film festival where two of his films, “Dev D” and “Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!” were screened.

So does he plan to sign his cousins Sunny and Bobby Deol for his home productions?

“I would love to sign them for my films but it also depends on whether the role is right for them. So I don’t think I will be able to approach them for my first venture, but something in the future definitely,” said Abhay.

Right now the actor is excited about his upcoming film “Road” with Dev Benegal and his romantic film “Ayesha” with Sonam Kapoor.

(Ruchika Kher can be contacted at ruchika.k@ians.in)