Bollywood actor Siddhant Chaturvedi, who marked his debut with Ranveer Singh’s Gully Boy in 2019 and became an overnight sensation, recently revealed that he was “blacklisted” during his struggling days as he only wanted to do lead roles in films. He also shared that he was approached by Ayan Mukerji for Brahmastra, but he did not sign the film as his father was against it.
Siddhant told Humans Of Bombay that even when he was struggling for a break in the film industry, he refused to play “side characters”. “The problem wasn’t that I had no offers, but I knew I only wanted to be a hero, to do leading parts. I had gotten shortlisted for a lot films, which I turned down saying I don’t think this can do justice to what I think I will be. I was blacklisted, because people thought, ‘Who this person is saying no?’,” he recalled.
He stated that he did not want to “short-sell” himself.
Siddhant revealed that he was offered to play one of the superheroes in Amitabh Bachchan’s clan and he met Ayan when the film was still being scripted. However, when he shared the same with his father, the latter asked him for the script and what he would do in the film, to which the actor had replied, “Shoot arrows and stuff”, which was disapproved by his father.
“I told my father the film has Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt and Amitabh Bachchan and he asked me, ‘Toh tujhe kaun dekhega?’,” Siddhant recalled.
“Do you have the script, have you auditioned for it? If you don’t even know what you are going to do in that film, don’t sell your destiny,” Siddhant’s father advised him.
The Gehraiyaan actor mentioned that when Gully Boy came his way, director Zoya Akhtar offered to share the entire script with Siddhant, who was a “nobody” back then, and the gesture left him shocked.
“I narrated the entire script to my father and despite the film having Ranveer and Alia, he noted two crucial scenes of mine – my entry and when I lose – and said these sequences will make me,” Siddhant said.
Siddhant is now gearing up for the release of his upcoming film, Yudhra, which also stars Malavika Mohanan opposite him. The actioner is set to release on October 20, 2024.
