You were clueless back in your college life and even felt awkward to accept that you wanted to become an actor...
There’s certain awkwardness about telling people that you want to get into the film industry, more so when you come from a filmi background. There were lots of career options that I considered, but deep down I always knew that I want to get into films. In fact, Zoya even told me that if you like being on stage, performing, music etc, you should take arts and do something in that space. But I didn’t want to do it because all my friends were taking Commerce. The first two years were okay but after the second year it got too intense and I realised that I didn’t want to do this.
There was a phase where you did absolutely nothing and got thrown out of your house...
My dad got very worried when I dropped out of college. But the hands-on experience of getting worried was my mom’s since I was staying with her. All I ever did that whole year was watch movies (all day long). It was the only thing that excited me. But things started getting a little too serious since the phase wasn’t ending and my mother asked me to leave the house. I then took up a job as assistant cinematographer to Manmohan Singh and worked on the film Lamhe.
You made Sridevi fall on the sets of the film Lamhe. Was that true?
Sridevi and Saroj Khan were practicing a dance step. Manmohanji, the cinematographer spotted a black patch on the floor and instructed me to polish it. I was the closest to the spot and quickly took the polish and started polishing the floor. As they were practising, Sridevi slipped because of the polish and fell on her back. There was pin drop silence on the set, as you would imagine. I thought to myself ‘there goes my job’. But, Sridevi herself started laughing and then slowly even the others found the courage to laugh. I am seriously eternally greatful to her for laughing it off or else my film career would have been cut very short!
Rekhaji is your neighbour. We hear you used to call your friends home as a kid to show off?
Nothing like that at all. In fact at times, when we used to have our birthday parties in our back lawn, Rekhaji would come to the balcony of her apartment and click our pictures and then later she would send them across to us.
Tell us about your bond with Zoya?
Most people say that I’m older than Zoya. She is my elder sister. But most people mistake her to be younger than me. In fact, some people even think that we are twins. One person, as we were being interviewed, even asked us about how we met thinking we are a couple!
As an actor/director, which has been the toughest film so far?
As a director, Lakshya was the toughest film and as an actor Karthik Calling Karthik was the toughest.
How was it acting with Hrithik Roshan?
Hrithik is very good but he doesn’t exude that in his personality. He’s very friendly, very loving and not insecure. I was never intimidated by him. It was actually exciting to act with Hrithik.
Do controversies affect you?
People are always keen on knowing things about their favorite actors. So whatever’s written about me, I’m okay with it and if it’s not true, I try and ignore it. I don’t take it too personally.
