Talking about his association with Kashmir, that dates back to 1970s, when he shot for ‘Bobby’ in the picturesque beauty of the valley, a nostalgic Rishi said, “Very few places in the world provide so much variety as Kashmir. You have so much variety here. It is a virgin beauty. This place is all about romance.”

"When we were shooting for Bobby in Pahalgam, it started snowing. So, we included that snow sequence also,” he said, adding that the Kapoor family in Bollywood has a deep association with Kashmir and were connected with the soil there.

Bollywood needs to return to Kashmir

Talking about the return of Bollywood to the valley that holds immense scope for the industry, he said that Kashmir has changed.

“Today I am glad to see a change in Kashmir. And this change is for good. Today you’d see flights to Valley booked and royal tourists visiting here, which is unlike the past when tourism to this place was very restricted,” he said.

He has recently shot for ‘Rockstar’ in the valley with ‘Love Aaj Kal’ director, Imtiaz Ali, and he said that Kashmir offered a spiritual experience. The disturbances in the state of Jammu and Kashmir had led to Bollywood shunning the valley for some time, but with things changing for the better, producers might turn to the valley once again.

Rishi as villain

Asked about his first proper negative role in his over twenty-five years long career in the film industry, he laughed and said that he never got a proper chance before ‘Agneepath’.

“While we have seen him with a shade or two of grey every now and then, the actor hasn't till date portrayed an out-and-out villainous role. A reality that is all set to change with Karan Johar's remake of his father's legendary hit Agneepath, in which Rishi will be seen playing the archetypal villain,” a tabloid reported a source as saying.