Interview | Sidharth Malhotra: At auditions, they make you feel terrible and small

Successful actors rarely talk about their struggling days. Most of them choose to blank it out or underplay it. That might be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at it. Aspiring actors could either be encouraged by their pre-success stories or be put off by the prospect of facing humiliation and hardships. Here, 

Sidharth Malhotra talks about the time when he came to the city of dreams with no filmi connection, and survival before he became a star.

Your family was in Delhi. Was it difficult to go through all of it alone?

Obviously. I came from a very comfortable background. It was difficult for me to deal with small things on many days. I would break down on days, and feel really low. But I never thought of going back because I had to prove a point to myself first and then everyone else that I could do this.

Then, you became an AD on the sets of Karan Johar’s film...

Yes, I was lucky enough to meet a friend who introduced me to the concept of assistant direction. I knew this was the job I wanted to have, if I wanted to be a Hindi film actor. It gave me a chance to be close to the cameras, the actors and see how things work. That was one of the most interesting decisions I took. I used to visit offices of production houses, and people thought I was there to audition and I would ask for ‘assistant direction’ waale jobs instead. It worked.

Wasn’t My Name is Khan your first film as an AD?

No, a lot of people don’t know this. But I worked for a bit in Dostana, too. But yes, My Name Is Khan was the best film school I could go to. Then, I was lucky because I got to audition for Student Of The Year (SOTY) and everything fell into place.

How many rejections did you go through before SOTY? 

That time, to survive, I had to give a lot of TV auditions. And it isn’t the most heartening sign when you have 150 people, all dressed up similarly, standing in a line for auditions. Then someone would come and ask me to say something random like, ‘Naam bolo,’ in a weird way. It was like a bloody jail where you have to say your name, number and act out something. 

Because half of us were clueless, we never got those jobs. People used to ask me to do some stupid, imaginary car-driving, or enact some lines or talk in some weird accent.

Tell me about your first audition... 

My first audition was for an ad film, it was rubbish, and I got rejected. I didn’t go through an agency, so they didn’t pay attention to me. Then, I bagged a Ponds advertisement, where the girl was Sonal Chauhan and we shot it in Bangkok. That was a big one.

Did that change anything?

Not really. When you bag one, you gain confidence. But you again go back and get rejected for your second, third and fourth and lose all that confidence. It’s very unpredictable and not for everyone. Only maybe for people who are frustrated and have to make ends meet, they know they have to survive such auditions.

What was the worst part?

(Pauses) At auditions, they make you feel terribly small and unimportant. It makes you feel that aapke jaise sau log aur hai. That’s why I digressed and became an assistant director. It was a very negative environment. It didn’t help me grow and kept me in the same loop.

Did you ever come across the casting couch?

No, never! It wasn’t casting couch. It was just people treating aspiring actors badly, which was upsetting. Most people were not civil, and were unnecessarily rude. Also, I had an immense sense of self respect even then, which people mistook for arrogance. I always knew I’m beyond this bull sh**. I would turn around and say, ‘Tameez se baat karo.’ I would speak in proper English and most times, they didn’t like that.

At some point, you decided to get out...

Yes, I realised that I can’t waste my time giving auditions for TV and ads because my final goal was to work in films. Then, I got lucky because I got the job as an AD, and the rest is history...