In October 2019, Karan Johar revamped his image as a filmmaker with a High School Musical kind of a fluffy, popcorn entertainer – Student Of The Year (SOTY). He launched three fresh faces with the film – Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt and Sidharth Malhotra. The coming-of-age flick struck a chord with the audience for its colourful song sequences, chic costumes and all the elements of a quintessential Bollywood films – a love triangle, a rich girl, a middle-class boy, a spoilt brat, college rivalry, true-blue friendship, ego battles, drama, action and oodles of comedy. But what caught everyone’s attention was the lead cast. While Varun and Alia belonged to film families, movie-goers were rather curious about a middle-class Delhi ka munda who was being launched in a KJo film.
Sidharth not only left the girls smitten with his good looks but also for his earnest portrayal of Abhimanyu ‘Abhi’ Singh, an orphan with big dreams, who loves his grandmother with all his heart. He soon became the nation’s heartthrob. Sidharth’s smashing introduction scene on a sleek motorbike with the chartbuster bhangra-pop number Kukkad Kamal Da playing in the background won the hearts of many a woman.
Prior to him headlining the cast in a Dharma Productions film, Sidharth was a model. But his association with Karan dates back to 2010 when he assisted the director-producer on the sets of the Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol starrer My Name Is Khan. After proving his movie star capabilities in SOTY, Sidharth went on to star in films such as Hasee Toh Phasee, Ek Villain (both 2014), Kapoor & Sons (2017) and Ittefaq (2017), among others. True to the nature of showbiz, while some of these films brought him accolades, others showered on him not-so-favourable responses. But then happened Shershaah (2021), a biopic on the life of Indian army officer Captain Vikram Batra, which saw him playing the titular role. It helped him regain his position as a bonafide star-actor, who made many move to tears with his gritty performance.
On a lazy afternoon, Sidharth walks in, all-black, with practically no jingbang, making several heads turn. He smiles and greets everyone, takes off his shades and sits down to chat with News18 about the past ten years that flew by like a whiff. Excerpts:
It has been ten years…
Yeah, it has been an interesting ten years. But it doesn’t feel so. Moreover, the pandemic also took away two years.
Your parents didn’t believe you when you told them that you wanted to become an actor. Now that you have made it, how do they react?
If anyone growing up outside Mumbai in any other cities, be it Kolkata, Delhi or Bangalore, go to their parents and tell them that they want to go to Mumbai for a potential audition and that they are getting close to bagging a film, it will be very difficult for them to believe. Anything of this nature is like a far-fetched dream. Disbelief is something that comes very naturally to the middle-class of this country. We’re all very scared to venture out because there’s no guarantee but a lot of struggles involved. My parents reacted like any average middle-class family. But it has been ten years since they’ve reacted in that way again and I think it means that they don’t regret me follow my dreams.
How do you want your journey to inspire other aspiring actors?
I hope it paves the way for many other people to come in. I hope I can be an example and let people know that there’s an inroad to this business. But yes, there’s a lot of pressure.
Please elaborate.
There’s pressure today as well. One can’t say they don’t feel it once they become an established actor. The pressure increases and it starts coming in from different points. But I guess it is fun. You’ve to have the love for movies to really survive and thrive in this business. That’s what kept me alive along with the desire to try different things and always keep learning. You’ve to accept that this is the only business in the world where if you’ve a bad day, everybody will come to know about it. So, it’s tricky, in that sense.
What was your first day on the sets of SOTY like?
On the first day, I shot for the song, Radha. I was wearing a blue kurta and the first shot I gave was me taking a step down and looking at Alia’s character.
Weren’t you nervous?
I was very nervous. It was very overwhelming for a boy from Delhi be part of such a big set and be choreographed by Farah Khan. There were some hundred plus dancers, Manish Malhotra (costume designer) doing our clothes and us getting our hair and make-up fixed amid a shaadi ka setting. A lot of things went into that first day, which I remember very clearly. It feels surreal that it has been ten years.
Did you also feel the pressure to live up to your first big film with your subsequent choices?
I was lucky to have an amazing launch. I’ve no complaints about that. Once you become a part of the business, you’ve to be committed and keep doing films after films and hope for the best after that. If I didn’t do these things, I wouldn’t be justifying the launch I had got.
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