All I am looking for is a fine combination of critical and commercial acclaim. Whether conventional or unconventional - does not matter.
I would love to do an action film. In college, I have played a lot of aggressive characters.
I've always believed that getting respect as an artiste is of utmost importance.
For an artiste to grow, for a person to grow, you have to learn. A learner cannot afford to have an ego. Learning can never stop. If it does, then it is death.
I'm glad I've established this as my zone: 'the taboo breaker.'
'Vicky Donor' dealt with a taboo topic, but it was a family entertainer and not cringe-worthy, which helped make it a commercial success.
I have realised that at the end of the day, I have to detach from my films, just do my job, and move on.
I think actors are very obsessed about looking different and behaving differently, but all people need is just a different film. They don't want a different you; they want a different story.
My debut, 'Vicky Donor,' was when I was 27. If I was a star kid, it would've been 22. I don't think the difference of five years would've affected much.
A good script can come from anywhere.
I look for scripts that give me a gut feeling that this is going to work.
In 2012, when I left MTV, irregular income started.
I was a radio jockey after graduation. I was 22, the youngest RJ in Delhi at that time.
I am the public, a boy from Chandigarh who's bought tickets in black and revered films since childhood, and when I choose scripts, I take out the garb of an actor-slash-star, and I consume the script as a layman.
Life is the biggest workshop: you have to observe life. You have to be one with the milieu more than anything else.
I couldn't be a conventional commercial actor without being a star-kid. That kind of a big film needs a certain mounting, a little paraphernalia around you. And nobody would give me that.
I had an edge in 'Andhadhun' because, being a musician, I knew how to play a guitar, so it was not difficult for me to learn a musical instrument.
I wanted to work with Sriram Raghavan, the master of noir.
I was a part of the reality show wave in 2002. Back then, no one had seen non-fiction on TV, and we had no reference point, so we all were just excited to see cameras around us.
An actor's off-screen persona should never overshadow his on-screen characters.
