Vikram Chatwal with fiancee Priya, and (below) with the Hilton sisters

Super Sikh. Turban cowboy. International playboy. Nicknames all, for one Vikram Chatwal. The 32-year-old New Yorker also has many identities. A hotshot hotelier, a Wharton graduate, a party animal who spends most nights with Paris Hilton and Gisele Bundchen (he?s got a big G tattooed on his arm), a model for Vogue and Morgan Stanley, and also an actor.

No wonder Vikram finds himself ?schizophrenic sometimes? and believes he has ?split personalities?. In his role as actor, his latest assignment is Ek Ajnabee where he plays a troubled father whose daughter is kidnapped. ?I first acted in high school in a Shakespearean play,? Vikram tells Metro in his suite at JW Marriott. ?Then, of course, I did a cameo in the Ben Stiller-starrer Zoolander. I went on to play the lead in the movie One Dollar Curry. And here I am in my first Bollywood film.?

The owner of hotel properties like the Time and the recently launched Dream and trendy lounges like Ava Penthouse and K (the Kama Sutra lounge), Vikram did Ek Ajnabee because of his friendship with director Apoorva Lakhia. ?My Hindi is not that great,? he says in an American accent that backs his point. ?It is my relationship with everyone on the sets and the little experience I have of acting that helped me come out quite well in the movie.?

The presence of Amitabh Bachchan helped. ?After some time, you feel at ease with him and then you can really give your best,? says Vikram. ?Add to that, Perizaad plays my wife in the movie and she is an absolute delight ? professional, sweet, just great. And Baby Rucha is quite amazing. Watching her act, I used to wonder did I know that much when I was so young.?

Ek Ajnabee is not a one-off assignment for the man who is into spiritualism too and believes in Taoism. ?This should be a take-off point for many other acting assignments here and abroad,? says the man who got engaged to Delhi-based model Priya but is yet to tie the knot. ?Apart from Ek Ajnabee, I have already shot for Tanuja Chandra?s English film Hope and a Little Sugar, which is in the post-production stages. I also have a small role in Karma, Confessions and Holi, which stars Sushmita Sen and Naomi Campbell. That?s coming along really well in New York.?

Vikram, who has to watch Simpsons everyday because it?s ?anti-depressant?, knows how to switch from hoteliering to acting at will. ?You can?t really say which is tougher to do, hoteliering or acting, because it depends from project to project,? he says. ?But I believe that running hotels is a job where you have to be tough from the outside but for acting you need inner strength.?