Rahul Dev feared he 'wouldn't last even one year in Bollywood', was told 'models like you don't work' | Exclusive

Rahul Dev is set to be seen on screen in the upcoming film Gaslight. The actor plays a senior cop in the murder mystery, which also stars Sara Ali Khan, Chitrangda Singh, and Vikrant Massey. In a candid chat with DNA, Rahul spoke about the film, his role, and his career, which included a difficult transition from modelling to acting.

In Gaslight, Rahul plays Ashok Tanwar, A superintendent of police in Rajasthan. Taking about his role, he shares, “Ashok Tanwar comes into the picture when the Raja goes missing. This character, though he is a police officer, has grown up among the royals. It’s a polished man you are talking about, an IPS officer. I took the language part of it from my father (a former Delhi Police officer). Sometimes in the films, they show cops too dramatic. But I took some reference from my father there.”

Rahul says that setting the film in Rajasthan adds the ijstrigue and mystery. “It is set in Rajasthan so that setting adds to the intrigue, with those palaces and the corridors. You see Alfred Hitchcock or Agastha Christie adaptations, anything that has spaces in a mystery, it works. Long alleys and corridors. Here, it works with Rajasthan,” he says.

Rahul informs us that Gaslight is his 137^th film, of which several have been in languages he doesn’t speak. These many films over the course of 23 years testifies to a successful career. But there was a phase when Rahul didn’t believe he would get this far. Back when he started his acting journey, Rahul remembers a strong distaste for models in Bollywood. “Initially, I would feel I wouldn’t last even one year because people would scare us,” he recalls, adding, “They would say we can’t act well and models you don’t work. People even asked me Hindi aati hai ya nahi (an you speak Hindi or not). I am from Delhi, why would I not speak in Hindi. But they had perceptions that models are foreigners and they would speak in some other tongue. I don’t know why that existed.”

Rahul feels the dislike for models at the time was weird given models brought a lot to the plate as compared to others. He says, “That was a very weird time. There was so much pressure to get even a sense of acceptance. But what is a model? It is a person who is earning their livelihood based on their appearance, how they are on the ramp, and how they perform in some ad film. Now, as a producer, I would think all this helps in acting because models look decent, have faced the camera and have good stage presence. They can be taught the other basics of acting.”

Gaslight, Rahul’s next film, is directed by Pavan Kirpalani. Produced by Ramesh Taurani, Tips Films Ltd. and Akshai Puri, 12th Street Entertainment, the film releases on March 31 on Disney+ Hotstar.