I realised after doing 'Tanu Weds Manu' that I had become fat and was not performing to the mark. I realised that I had become a terrible actor. I did 'Jodi Breakers,' which did not do well. So, I moved away from the film industry and lived with the common man to know where I was lacking and what do they want from an actor.
After I found that I had become an actor, slightly to my surprise, I did have some insecurity, and I did take some rather strange acting classes at a place called The Actor's Studio in London. I don't think they did me any good at all.
I didn't become an actor to make money. And I didn't become an actor to be famous - though people always gasp if you say that, as if it's unfathomable that an actor doesn't want to be a star.
An actor is an actor. There should be no labelling - mainstream actor, art film actor, serious actor, comic actor.
I think of myself as an actor. The duty of an actor is to be able to impersonate anything - a child, an old man, a tree, a chair, a woman.
You reminded me of a quote that my acting teacher Stella Adler wrote in her book ['The Art of Acting'], which I asked her to sign: "The young actor feels some greatness inside themselves that they want to give back to the world." That resonated with me, but I didn't really understand what she was talking about until much later, in the way you surmised that my struggle to become an actor was from being this kind of introverted young boy.
Every actor starts out saying, 'I can play anything in the world: I'm only 25, but I can be a man 70 years old. I'll put on a gray wig and do it.' But nobody hires you for that. You have to play yourself on the screen.
It took me a long time to make that leap to being a grown-up and responsible adult because I carried on being a child actor into my late twenties. It's OK to be precocious when you're young, but when you're a man of about 27 or 28 and playing a 17-year-old in a TV show, it kind of prolongs your childhood.
I had said bye-bye to acting, in a way, but once an actor, always an actor. Life has got other plans for me. Like, I did not want to be an actor - I wanted to be an architect or astronaut - and 'Daddy' happened, and the rest is history.
Going from a child actor to an adult actor is not an easy thing, and I was sort of lost in a no man's land for a while, trying to figure out who I was as a person, and going from a young actor to an adult actor.
I never wanted to be an actor, and to this day I don't. I can't get a handle on it. An actor wants to become someone else. I am a song-and-dance man, and I enjoy being myself, which is all I can do.
I never wanted to be an actor and to this day I don`t. I can`t get a handle on it. An actor wants to become someone else. I am a song-and-dance man and I enjoy being myself, which is all I can do.
TV and films are same for me. I took a decision to be an actor, and I am an actor. I never decided to be TV actor or film actor.
I don't want to become a star. I never wished to become an actor, even when I am here. When you decide to become an actor, you've to choose why you're doing it. Are you doing it to become an actor or because you want to be famous? I am doing it because I love being in front of the camera.
I think, when someone say, "When did you feel like an actor?" it's those moments when I feel like, "I'm an actor, wow." That's an extraordinary moment for me. So it's not like I walk around going, "I'm an actor."
How you look is part of what acting is, but the way I look at it, every actor is a character actor. Someone once told me at a casting, 'You're a character actor in a leading man's body,' and I can live with that.