I am not a kid please: `Udaan` actor Rajat Barmecha

New Delhi: Rajat Barmecha is an angry young man. "I am not 17, I am 21 please," says the actor who made his debut in `Udaan` playing an angst ridden teenager and he is miffed with the "kid" label. The former model who initially moved to Mumbai from Delhi to become a jewellery designer says that he does not mind the "cute" tag, but wants to be taken seriously as an actor.

"There were a few articles where they referred to me as the 17-year-old actor and I was so angry. I am 21, though I know I do look younger. I am fine with being called cute, but I don`t want to be taken for a kid," Rajat told reporters. The young actor is winning rave reviews for his turn as Rohan, a teenager stuck in a abusive relationship with his father in `Udaan` which became the first Indian film to make it into the official selection at Cannes Film Festival, in the past seven years. As far as his acting career is concerned, Rajat says that he is in no hurry to sign his second film and is not aiming for a grown-up make-over to suit the industry. "I don`t want to force myself to look like a dude. Get six-pack abs or anything. I know I am cute and I am not looking for an image change. Even Imran Khan had the cute image and when he tried to change it with `Kidnap` and `Luck`, it didn`t work. But that does not mean I will say no to the homework that a role demands." said Rajat. But he has already charted down a Bollywood wish-list and Salman Khan and Kareena Kapoor are on top of it. "I am a huge Salman Khan fan. I like Salman Khan as a person and really want to meet him and may be work with him as well. And Kareena Kapoor, I would love to work with her, but not as her younger brother," said the debutante. Meanwhile Rajat is enjoying the female attention coming his way post his film debut and is flooded with `friends requests` on Facebook and autograph seekers in real life. "I am totally enjoying the attention right now. My Facebook account is flooded with requests and girls tell me how cute I am and I get approached for photographs. It`s nice because none of these people would have cared earlier and I like being liked," said the actor. But Rajat counts himself lucky because his first audition for Vikramaditya Motwane, Udaan`s director was in his own words an "embarrassing" episode. "My first audition was terrible because I was doing full-on filmi acting. But luckily Vikram met me later and liked the real me. I had to go through a process to get rid of the tendency to overact, including a week where my phone was taken away from me and I was just left to myself," remembered the actor. PTI