He was the surprise element of Anurag Kashyap's Dev.D and got a thumbs up from the critics, but it's not Debyendu Bhattacharya's first brush with fame. The list of roles include Yeda Yakub in Black Friday, Kripashankar Singh in The Rising, a footballer called Debasis in Goal and several other's in films like Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, Monsoon Wedding, Maqbool and Ab Tak Chappan.

Bhattacharya says that for some reason people don't recognise his face which he takes as a compliment. "I am glad people remember my characters and not me. Once after enacting a play, a senior theatre personality went and congratulated someone else thinking it's me. People don't recognise me," he says.

So ask him if he's obsessed with gaining recognition like most other actors and he says, "I love recognition. We act for the audience and if they like us, it gives us a big high. But an actor should never get bigger than the character. Once the actor becomes bigger than the character, you can never do justice to the role. That's the reason why I appreciate Aamir Khan."

Chunni might just be a turning point for the actor. "Anurag and I have been friends for 10 years. He told me that if Black Friday does well, he will cast me as Chunni in Dev.D. He was under a lot of pressure from the producers to opt for a well-known actor considering Chandramukhi and Paro were also new faces. I understood their concern. But Anurag works on his own terms and stands by his actors," he says.

Bhattacharya's next though will be a complete contrast from the roles he has played so far. "I play a comic character in debutant director Nikhil Bhatt's small town comedy called Saluun. I don't want to do only art house or serious cinema. I want to do mainstream films too and work with directors like Karan Johar."