Mumbai, Jan 8 (PTI) Actor Rajniesh Duggall is all praise for his co-star Sunny Leone, with whom he has shared screen space twice, and says the actress is very grounded despite being extremely popular.

Rajniesh first worked with the "Jism 2" star in last year's "Ek Paheeli Leela". The duo will team up again for their forthcoming romantic-drama "Beiimaan Love".

"Sunny Leone is very professional. It has been a great experience working with her. She is very well known, extremely famous, and yet very grounded. When on set, she is completely in the working-mode zone. We have worked previously so there was a good comfort zone between us," Rajinesh told PTI.

The actor says "Beiimaan Love" is very dark and romantic unlike the duo's last outing.

"It was a challenging role to play. It is a bold character and the film is about love, lust, revenge and drama. It is a dark romantic film. It won't be like 'Leela', which was spanning in different times. It is a very today's film."

Rajniesh, who made his debut with Vikram Bhatt's horror film "1920", will next be seen in "Direct Ishq". He plays the role of Vickky, a flamboyant man, in the Rajiv S Ruia directed film.

"I was initially offered the role of Kabir Bajpai, before Arjun Bijlani came on board to play the character. It was a soft, lover boy role which I didn't want to do anymore.

I said I will play the role of Vickky Shukla, who is an out-an-out masala 'dabangi' character, very flamboyant and charming," he said.

The actor, who was also seen in bold romantic number "Mohabbat Barsa Dena Tu" from Bipasha Basu-starrer "Creature 3D", says he wants to shed his image of a soft lover boy.

"It is a conscious decision to break free of the lover boy tag. I was endorsing a suitings brand for a long time and then I left it because I wanted to come out of the clean, complete man image. Hence I did 'Ek Paheeli Leela', the song 'Mohabbat Barsa Dena' and now 'Direct Ishq'," he said.