No, it’s not the kind of deadly nuclear war missile of a superpower you are probably thinking of. This missile is the one that ‘Sky Force’ debutant Veer Pahariya has been nursing and is quietly determined to launch someday. In the countdown to the 1965 Indo-Pak war film in which he debuts alongside Akshay Kumar, Sara Ali Khan and Nimrat Kaur, Veer Pahariya who is now quite the darling of the media and accepted by the audience counts all his blessings and recounts the bleak days he faced when nothing seemed right.

In a media interaction, the young actor who plays the role of real fighter pilot, Squadron Leader Ajjamada Bopayya Devayya of the Indian Air Force, who got martyred in the war, talks about the many times that films came his way but slipped out of hand. It happens to most actors wanting a break, he admitted. Which made him lose hope, get tense and stressed, and feel a drop in his self-confidence. But this industry is such that sometimes you are very busy and there are times when months go by and you have no work in hand, he accepted ruefully.

Another debutant might have given up. But Veer Pahariya is made of much stronger stuff. He used the time during those bleak, depressing periods to work on himself. On bettering his talent, firstly. And because acting roles were not happening, Veer Pahariya took an interest in languages. He even studied Urdu. And taught himself to write stories, poems, songs. In this way hours passed in the studio. He said it was a lot of fun. And now has what is like a bank account of original content that he wants to share when the time comes. “I will release it like a missile,” the young actor said with a broad hint at the aerial warfare to come in ‘Sky Force’ that releases on Friday.