Vicky Kaushal ‘Power Is A Responsibility'

The sticky filaments of fame have not altered his inner wiring. Hello! Brings you right into the volatile universe of a newly empowered talent who admits that the joy of a career in cinema today comes from its super-exacting demand: you must virtually become your character incarnate. Everything else – the awards, the social media following, the hysteria – are merely collateral damage, if you let it change you!

- Sangeeta Wadhwani

The patina of stardom is new for this 30-year-old actor. It shows in his casual acknowledgement of the HELLO! team, his playfulness with a Louboutin sneaker streaked with fluorescent green, his tertiary smile at me, waiting in the winter sunshine for this ‘fallout-of-fame shoot’ to release him so we can chat.

As restless pigeons sip and dive around the hotel’s swimming pool, Vicky enters the gilded cage of shoot-time. Surrendering to the demands of the camera, experimenting with looks, attitudes, body language, angles. However, one notices, he never forces things. If a smile arrives, it arrives. If the sun makes him squint, well, he has a squint. Most times, he has an angst-ridden frown, that seems to say, “what is all this fussing yaar… chalo let’s do the needful and get on with it!”

It takes patience to translate oneself into good imagery – but way more stoicism and sincerity to wear the crown of thorns that so many of his characters live with. Ever since mainstream cinema has driven ‘herogiri’ to extinction, the Vicky Kaushals of the world have become stars. He truly sees it as a moment in history, an accident, a blessing. HELLO! settles down to a candid chat with the man who would have been a telecommunications engineer, had he not listened to his son-ofthe-soil heart!

Vicky, one has seen many of your interviews, and in all of them, you have managed to keep yourself very simple and pure of heart, despite all this avalanche of media attention…

“I am not actually responsible for it, it is my family, my upbringing, my close friends from childhood, that keep me grounded. They treat me the same way as always, and they also make sure I am the same way. Of course there are times when you unknowingly tend to waver around, but it’s really important who you are surrounded with. That really matters.”