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This new daunting look of yours in ‘Antim’ is distinctly different from your first impression in ‘LoveYatri’. How has the response been so far?
It’s been very exciting because you know when my first movie ‘LoveYatri’ came out, they said I am a very cute, nice boy and things like that. People have actually been able to differentiate between my looks. In ‘Antim’, I play more of a dark character. We had been working on my look for three years. I am glad that hard work has paid off. I had gone bald to take the look test to bring in authenticity.
From being a lover boy to an intense hardcore action hero–you totally look unrecognisable. What went behind the transformation?
After my first film came out, I was getting similar roles. I really wanted to change my body of work. There were so many of conversations about my first film. When I watched ‘Mulshi Pattern’, I realised I needed something similar. I wanted to challenge myself as well. The dialogues stuck on me, and I felt this was something that had a lot of attitude and scope. For this film, I realised I need to have a cinematic presence. A lot of weight gaining, eating, and changing my voice was required.
Speaking of Salman Khan, sharing screen space with him must have been an exhilarating experience. Did it ever happen that Salman’s presence became too overwhelming?
It is overwhelming. I didn’t expect to hold this myself. He is a magnum opus star, and when you are acting opposite him, you realise you aren’t working with him as family, you are working and looking at him as a superstar! I never imagined sharing a screen or a poster with him. That pressure was also there. And I just felt that this man has a very overpowering effect, but even if I manage to have one scene and people say that I’ve done a good job, it would be my victory.
There must be a lot of pressure of being in the same frame as him…
Yes, there’s pressure. But I always try to see the positive side of things. Because of his presence, there is a lot of attention too towards the film. There will be a lot of people watching the film. And I believe that today, if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have been able to go for a theatrical release. He does make sure of all those elements for me and, as an actor, these are the positives I’d like to focus on.
One piece of advice that Salman has shared with you on sets while shooting, which will stay with you forever…
I remember when I did my first scene in the film, I asked him if I was doing a good job. He said, ‘Don’t take my advice…I’m an actor myself. If I tell you what to do, you will start copying me and I do not want two Salmans in the same frame. The audience wants to see Aayush Sharma vs Salman Khan’. He then asked me to take advice from the director. He, in this film, never told anything; he gave me complete creative freedom and we also improvised a lot of scenes while shooting.
Does the fact that you are Salman’s brother-in-law at times overshadow the fact that you are a hardworking and earnest actor?
When you are under a huge banyan tree, the sunlight is going to be a little less. It will take a lot of time for the sunlight to reach me, and then people will start noticing me for who I am. And I cannot be critical about that element or weave a sad story about it, because, at the end of the day, I got my break from him, my second film is with him, so I owe a lot to him. I genuinely believe it will take some time for people to recognise my work, but that recognition will only come if I keep doing things what they aren’t expecting me to do. Slowly and steadily they will start realising that I have something to offer on my own. When you are associated with a huge personality, there are advantages and disadvantages too.
How much do you let the reviews and critics bother you?
I won’t lie. When I read the first critical reviews of ‘Loveyatri’, I really didn’t get why people were targeting me. I felt there was some smear campaign behind it. But I soon realised that was the wrong attitude. I don’t think I would have been able to achieve Rahulia if those critics and reviews didn’t write those things about me. I really want to thank them. I always say I am not an actor, I can’t act…I’m a student of acting, I am learning, I am gradually growing. I will pick up cues from my director, my co-actors. The one thing that should be constant is growth. I went through every review of ‘LoveYatri’, made notes, and improved accordingly. I believe in not seeing critics as my enemies, but as people who are going to help me become a better actor.
After reading the reviews of ‘LoveYatri’, I made a conscious effort to not jump into any film right away because of the pressure of constantly staying alive in the film industry, because there’s no point bringing a similar side of yours that way.
Playing a gangster has been a turning point for many actors’ careers before–Sanjay Dutt, Manoj Bajpayee, and even Salman Khan, for that matter. Are you hoping the character of Rahulia will do the same for you?
I definitely hope that happens. I hope there’s a lingering effect.
What’s your approach to building your career and enhancing your stardom?
There are two things which people always pressurise themselves with, very early on in their career — box office and perceptions. For me, right now, it’s more about finding my own foothold, making mistakes, learning from them. I am okay to make mistakes.
‘Sooryavanshi‘ has set huge benchmarks for the film industry now. Are you expecting ‘Antim’ to have a similar journey at the box office?
I am hoping for that. I am not going to keep ‘Sooryavanshi’ as the benchmark. This time the numbers will be distributed between ‘Satyameva Jayate 2’ and ‘Antim’. And ‘Antim’ is not an out-and-out commercial film; it’s a dark and intense film.
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