When Swagger Meets Substance

There is no denying that the brainy and distractingly good looking Sidharth Malhotra has been making an ardent effort to unshackle the cute-boy image with his eclectic choice of films

- Nivedita Jayaram Pawar

Sidharth Malhotra was only 22 when he landed in Mumbai with stars in his eyes and dreams in his heart. In the eight years since he moved from Delhi, where he was born, Sidharth has gone from sharing a room with three other struggling actors in a flat in Juhu to becoming one of the top actors in Bollywood today. If you consider the success of his recent film Kapoor & Sons, this Delhi boy is now the emblem of models who can act.

It’s hard to imagine that this hot guy, who grabbed a million hearts with his ripped body and spunky behaviour in Student of the Year, was the clapper boy in Anubhav Sinha’s Ra.One. Sidharth was set to make his debut in an Anubhav Sinha action film. As fate would have it, the film got shelved. “After spending around eight months prepping for an action film, I was restless and depressed. Pressure from family was mounting and I went back to modelling for a year.” A casual conversation with a friend drew his attention in another direction, that of assistant director. “As a boy from a middle-class family, it was important to be able to tell my family that I had a job. From then on, instead of auditioning for an actor’s role, I would apply for the part of production assistant.” Working on films like Dostana, Ra.One and My Name is Khan was the best training he could have got. “It taught me camera angles, direction methods and technical know-how that I found immensely useful when I finally faced the camera for Student Of The Year (SOTY).” Sidharth believes he is destiny’s favoured child. “How else would a boy next door from Delhi have succeeded in making it to the big screen?” he asks with a grin.

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