Rohit Saraf’s on-screen image has been of the boy-next-door with projects like Mismatched and Ishq Vishk Rebound (2024) to his name. But recently, the actor unveiled his ripped and chiselled physique in the first look of his upcoming series The Revolutionaries. Talking about this transformation, he says, “It was long overdue.”

Rohit Saraf adds, “My journey with fitness has always been challenging. Growing up, I used to be a dancer, so my fitness came from that. I was never somebody who believed in wanting to go to the gym to stay fit. But when I grew up and started seeing the parts I was doing, it felt like a requirement.”

Then came Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari to him and it was director Shashank Khaitan who nudged the 28-year-old towards this fitness journey. “It wasn’t a condition for the role, but he wanted to show me in a different way,” he shares, adding that as he got on the journey, he started enjoying it. “Weirdly, there was a sense of discipline that had trickled down in other areas of my life as well. What I was eating, my schedules, my sleep cycle, everything started falling in place because of having a regular workout routine,” he says.

During this journey, even The Revolutionaries came his way. “I knew that I would have to perform scenes where I would have to be shirtless as my character. I had to be well-defined and have a certain physique that (director) Nikkhil Advani had in mind. And now, I could not imagine a day in my life where I don’t workout or where I’m not conscious of what I am eating,” he says.

Rohit teased his transformation for about six months on social media before unveiling it to his fans. But it wasn’t a planned thing. “I was also kind of coming to terms with the fact that this is how I look now and getting comfortable with that. I was a little shy to post pictures shirtless earlier because I’d never done it. Also, I believed that it would be nicer for the audience to see me shirtless for the first time if it’s for a project and not just randomly on Instagram. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but I feel when it’s done for a reason, it’s nicer,” he admits.

But he doesn’t call it “as much a transformation as it is an evolution”. “It’s not like I changed who I am, it’s just another extension of me. The kind of reception I have got has been nothing but supportive. There was some shock value because people had never seen me like that. I am happy with what this entire journey has done for me, not just physically but even emotionally and mentally. I feel a lot more confident now, which is very exciting,” he says.

So, are his DMs getting more thirsty now? “I think they always were. There’s just been a change of adjectives and I have nothing to complain about,” he quips.