Having worked extensively both for commercial as well as niche films like 'Kaminey', 'Haider', Shahid Kapoor will now be seen as Tommy Singh in 'Udta Punjab'. In an interview to a daily, he accepts that niche movies have worked really well for him. Shahid, extremely excited about his role, which he terms as "mad, psychotic and crazy", generated a lot of curiosity in him. While he wishes the movie reaches out to a wider audience, he's not really thinking about the money it'll make.
Further, he also said that movie characters that're into substance abuse ('Requiem For A Dream', 'Dallas Buyers Club', 'The Basketball Diaries') interest him and feels that his portrayal as Tommy, too, has some layers of it. Having said that, he feels it is an original character, which draws references from many others and is not re-created from anyone else.