When Emraan Hashmi said he was done with kissing scenes, but did more anyway

There was a time when Emraan Hashmi wanted nothing to do with the image that made him famous.By the mid-2000s, after hits like Murder (2004) and Zeher (2005), Hashmi had become synonymous with kissing scenes. The 'serial kisser' tag followed him everywhere, but the actor was already looking for a way out. By 2006, he openly spoke about being tired of repeating the same formula and began deliberately staying away from intimate scenes.Films like The Killer (2006), Dil Diya Hai (2006) and Awarapan (2007) marked that shift. Hashmi wanted audiences to see him as more than an actor who could guarantee a few kisses and chartbusters. He wanted stronger characters and stories that allowed him to prove himself as a performer.Awarapan, in particular, became an important part of that transition. Hashmi played Shivam Pandit, a brooding, emotionally wounded man - with no kissing scenes. While the film did not work at the box office initially, his performance eventually became one of its biggest takeaways. But the 'serial kisser' tag was not so easy to shake off.Over the years, Hashmi continued to experiment with darker and more performance-driven roles, from Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai (2010) and Shanghai (2012) to Tigers (2014) and Ground Zero (2025). In 2018, he even spoke about how on-screen intimacy had lost its novelty with the rise of OTT, making it clear that he was no longer interested in doing it simply because audiences expected it. And yet, somewhere along the way, Hashmi stopped running from the image.With films like The Body (2019) and the series Showtime (2024), he began playing with the very persona he had once tried to leave behind. The 'serial kisser' became less of a box he was trapped in and more of a part of his pop-culture identity that he could choose to embrace.Now, Awarapan 2 brings the journey almost full circle.Nearly two decades after Hashmi used Awarapan to move away from the image, he is back as Shivam Pandit, and has found himself at the centre of a massive box-office success. Interestingly, the film once again does not need kissing scenes to sell him.That makes Awarapan 2 an even more fitting chapter in Hashmi's journey. The actor who once wanted to escape the 'serial kisser' label eventually learned to own it, without allowing it to define him.From trying to bury the image to embracing it, and finally finding his groove on his own terms, Emraan Hashmi's 'serial kisser' journey has come full circle.- EndsPublished By: Anurag BohraPublished On: Aug 18, 2026 16:40 IST