WHAT ATTRACTED YOU TO BECOME AN ACTOR?
To be honest, I never really thought of acting as a profession. Coming from a business family in India (and being the only son), you always believe that you are going to take over the family business and have no other option, at least back in the '90s when I was growing up. So even my education was geared towards that. I studied at the University of Texas in Austin and did my degree in Business, and came back to join my dad in our family business, but I wasn't really happy. I would go to the factory and we were the largest manufacturer of audio magnetic tape at that time, but it wasn't my thing, so I requested my dad if I could do my own thing. Then I joined an investment bank and worked there for a bit, and it was very successful, made a lot of money, but money isn't the only thing in life, right? You have to be creatively satisfied and I don't think I was getting that creative satisfaction. I would visit my sister on her shoots every now and then on the weekends, and that's when I actually got exposed to the world of cinema, and I was quite intrigued by the whole process of filmmaking, and you know, the acting that actually involved so much hard work and dedication. That's when I decided that I would like to explore this as well. I joined Professor Roshan Taneja's 'Actor Prepares' where I did a six-month course and after which I joined Mahesh Bhatt's company as an assistant director, and the rest is, as they say, history. I don't really look up to any one particular person as a mentor, but I have had many along the way I try to pick up the best from everyone. I also try to learn from other people's mistakes but as we all know it's very difficult, as you actually make those mistakes yourselves you really don't learn the lesson. Sometimes we repeat those mistakes over and over again, and you know it keeps bringing those lessons to you, but until you learn those lessons, you're going to keep faltering, so yeah, no one particular mentor, but I try to learn from every human being no matter how rich, poor, old, young, experienced, and unexperienced. I think you can learn from everyone, especially children; they have so much to teach us. I would like to play myself, but from the start of my career, everyone's keep saying that Arjun Rampal and I really look alike; we almost look like brothers. So I guess just going by the physicality of it, maybe just you know the fact that we look so alike, maybe him, but other than that, I think me. Who can play me better than me?
WHO DO YOU LOOK UP TO AS A MENTOR?
IF SOMEONE WAS GOING TO MAKE YOUR LIFE INTO A MOVIE, WHO WOULD PLAY YOU?
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