By Hindustan Times

Mumbai, Aug. 6 -- Although Kunal Kapoor jokes that he was "busy sorting out the financial crisis" in 2009, the year in which he was missing on screen, he had a lot up his sleeve.

The actor, who was last seen in Rahul Dholakia's recently-released film Lamhaa, admits that he wasn't getting exciting scripts.

So instead of waiting for good movies to come along, he decided to do something about it. "In the last year or so, I have had the chance to sit with the directors and writers I admire, and develop a bunch of scripts," Kapoor reveals. "I discussed a few ideas with them that I found interesting, and now, some of them are being turned into movies."

One of those movies is Chamkila, to be helmed by Navdeep Singh, on the life of an assassinated Punjabi folk singer by the same name. "I came across Chamkila's story in Punjab," says Kapoor. "I had been wanting to work with Navdeep ever since I saw Manorama Six Feet Under (2007). I think he's an extremely talented director. I told him the idea, and now, the script has almost been finalised."

Kapoor says it is his "incredibly inquisitive nature" that has helped him develop ideas for movies. "I love listening to people's stories, and I easily get excited when the stories are interesting," he laughs. One of the films he is developing is a romantic comedy, and the actor says he has made a "minor contribution" to the story.

"I always get these roles where I had a bad childhood, or I've grown up in a dark atmosphere or am partly schizophrenic," he chuckles. "Maybe it's the hair and the beard, because I'm quite a happy-go-lucky person that way. I've been dying to do a movie that reflects that, and that's how this movie happened." The actor will next be seen as the voice of Ram in an animated version of the Ramayana.