Dulquer Salmaan says he is criticised for not doing commercial films

Dulquer Salmaan says working on The Zoya Factor was fun as he is often criticised for not doing enough commercial films.

The Malayalam superstar, who made his Bollywood debut with Karwaan, plays a cricketer in his second Hindi movie and is paired opposite Sonam Kapoor. The film is an adaptation of Anuja Chauhan's romantic novel of the same name.

"It is not a conscious choice to do films to reach out to a wider audience. I don't think I have done that in Malayalam cinema ever. I do films that I like, I go by gut. It is up to the makers how they pitch the film to the audience.

"Interestingly, I am criticised for not doing commercial films, so once in a while when I get to do a commercial film, it is good," Dulquer told PTI.

The 33-year-old actor is primarily lauded for his performance in content-rich films like Mahanati, Ustad Hotel, Njaan, Solo, 5 Sundarikal and others.

The Zoya Factor follows the story of Zoya Solanki who becomes a lucky charm for the Indian Cricket team during the 2011 Cricket World Cup much to the annoyance of her romantic interest, skipper Nikhil Khoda (Dulquer), who doesn't believe in luck and superstitions.

Dulquer says he undertook training to hone his cricketing skills.

"I am not a professional cricketer. I have played gully cricket. The biggest challenge was to play cricket in a convincing way. So I took time to prep for this film. I had coaches, I did a lot of practising as I wanted to make it look right. I trained for two months in Mumbai and Kochi."

The film produced by Fox Star Studios, Pooja Shetty and Aarrti Shetty will release countrywide tomorrow.