Gaurav Arora Exclusive: In Bollywood, people become Thakur only after stumbling.

You grew up in a non-filmi family in Madhya Pradesh. How did you get interested in acting?

I wanted to become an actor since childhood, but I did not tell this to anyone. I thought people would think that here everyone has to be a hero. I was in boarding school and I saw that all the models were going on to become actors so I thought maybe this was the way I could at least get entry into this industry. I came to Mumbai thinking that I would do modelling, then try films and that is what I did.

How difficult was this journey? Have you ever gone through a period of great despair?

There was definitely a struggle, but I knew it was going to happen so I was ready for that struggle. Rest, this city teaches you to be patient. People like us who have come from outside have a lot of hunger to prove ourselves, so we keep going, because we know that we have come from outside, we do not have any plan B, so keep doing, keep falling, keep learning. Here people become Thakur only after facing stumbles. But the most difficult period for me was when in 2016, both my films Love Games and Raaz Reboot did not do well. After that I could not understand what would happen next? Will you get work or not? I had no other plan B so this was the thing to do. So, I decided that if this is what I want to do, I will have to work on myself a lot. Then I did not say yes to any project for two-three years. Even when it came handy, he/she refused it and worked only on himself. Did a lot of workshops, watched content from around the world, worked on physical appearance. My thinking was that whatever work I do next, my craft should come out in perfection and then the first show I signed was Asur. he/she was liked very much. Then Broken But Beautiful was also a superhit, its second season also came. Then two seasons of stress came and the risk I took of taking a break paid off.

You had played hero roles in films, so there was no hesitation in playing the role of a villain under stress?

Not at all, I had dreamed of doing this character. Actually, I had seen Fauda (on which the tension is based). The name of this character in Fauda is Nidal, so while watching it, I thought that I wish I get to play this character someday, so I was very excited. Now times are also changing. The audience is so intelligent that it understands the difference between reel and real life, so it does not make much difference. If you see recently, Ranbir Kapoor’s Animal or Arjun Kapoor’s Singham Again had negative reviews, but the audience accepted it.

These days the era of anti heroes is going on. Do such gray characters appeal more to you as an actor? Secondly, when the hero is anti, there is an attempt to glorify him/her, like Animal or Kabir Singh, don’t you think this is a wrong trend?

We are all gray somewhere. No one is completely white or black, so such characters seem a little real. Then, if you leave aside the last 5-10 minutes, playing the role of a villain is a lot of fun. If seen, the stories remain the same, the villains keep changing, even if you watch all the superhero stories, it is a lot of fun to see the villains from a different perspective, to play them in a different way. As for the question of glorifying the villain, my character in the show is also not a dreaded or typical villain. he/she also feels scared, he/she also feels like crying. Something happened to him/her that he/she chose the wrong path, but we have not glamorized it. Look, violence can never be justified. Non-violence will always win, but as an actor, if I have taken the responsibility of living a character, then I have to show his/her journey and his/her perspective in the right way, whether I sympathize with him/her or not. Rest, if you talk about Animal or Kabir Singh, the name of that film itself is Animal and the character itself is like that. When you saw the trailer, only these things were shown that there is violence in the film or this character behaves like this, then you have the option not to watch it. No one is forcing you to see it.

What preparation did you have to do to get into the role of a terrorist like Farid Mir in the series? What was the challenge?

I had to do a lot of homework for this character because the subject is very sensitive. We were showing one aspect of Kashmir, so it was very important to tell it correctly. The first homework was that when you see Farid for the first time, he/she is about 30 years old, but what happened before that that his/her thinking became like this. I wanted to understand his/her journey, so for that I watched a lot of documentaries made on Kashmir and read articles, through which I understood the situation of Kashmir in the last three decades. Then, took Kashmiri diction classes. Then at times he/she speaks Arabic, because he/she came from ISIS, so he/she took Arabic classes. Apart from this, we had a combat training. Action training was given in the boot camp, because Farid is an ISIS warrior, so a lot of hard work was required.

Now you are seen only in web series instead of films. Don’t miss the big screen?

Nowadays people have evolved so much that veil no longer matters. If you do good work, people will appreciate it wholeheartedly. Like, the amount of love and respect I got for Asur, I never got for films. Similarly, there was a lot of appreciation for the tension as well. I don’t care much about the screen, I just want to work with good people.