The acting bug had bitten when Ranveer Singh was a callow boy, performing one of Hindi cinema’s most memorable dialogues – ‘Mere paas maa hai’. It was an ‘Aha!’ moment for him. “I felt this immense rush… I was like, this is when I feel most alive,” he recalled in a recent interview, with veteran journalist Shekhar Gupta for ‘Off the Cuff’ event hosted in Mumbai.
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It also struck him fairly early that Bollywood was a closed little playground meant to promote its own. Taking the nepotism bull by its horns, he says, “The only thing I ever wanted to do is become an actor, and around grade 10, I realized that the way the film industry is structured is very nepotistic. The only people who are getting breaks were sons of actors, directors, producers… Everybody had a lineage.”
In fact, there were such few instances of ‘outsiders’ making it in the film industry, that he almost gave up on his dream of becoming an actor to settle for working as a copywriter instead. ‘Almost,’ because he gave his dream all he had, relentlessly pursuing actors and filmmakers for a chance to get noticed in the film industry.
“I made a kickass portfolio and I used to go from office to office. I used to sometimes ambush filmmakers at restaurants and at nightclubs,” he said. Eventually, he was offered a part by the mighty Yash Raj Films, one of oldest and leading production houses. “I understood that this was the opportunity I was waiting for all my life,” he said. Of course, the fact that he had actually landed his debut film, Band Baaja Baaraat hit him so hard, he was overcome with emotion and fell to the floor crying his heart out! “I had been selected to be a leading man in a Yash Raj film. A guy from nowhere… that moment will be with me forever,” is how he explains it.
Band Baaja Baaraat was both a critical and a commercial success, and even bagged Ranveer the Filmfare Award for Best Male Debutant. And the rest, as they say, is history!
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