Ayushman Khurrana: Success is a very lousy teacher

Sneha Mahadevan

DNA

Mar 07, 2015

As a multi-faceted personality, Ayushmann Khurrana has done it all " be it acting, singing or anchoring a TV show. His debut film, Vicky Donor turned out to be a huge success and catapulted him to the elite league. However, that very film dragged him down because the parameters for judging success were always as high as his debut film. With Dum Laga Ke Haisha, he has not only proved his worth but also made his parents proud. Excerpts from a conversation...

Your debut Vicky Donor was a huge hit, but you couldn't make a mark with your other films after that. Was it disappointing?

I have been rejected in most auditions so I am immune to success and failure. I also believe that success is a very lousy teacher. You learn a lot from your failures. Apart from that, you learn a lot from every film. Your craft just improves with every film and I am just glad I did all those films. It was the curse of the first benchmark film " the debut film was so big that it reached a cult status. It was a film made with '4 crores and it reached '50 crores. That's why I think the expectations were so high! But after the last film (Bewakoofiyan), I think the expectations weren't there at all! (Laughs)

Ever have self-doubt in the period that your films weren't doing well?

Till the time your craft is being appreciated, there can't be any self-doubt. You can doubt your decisions for sure but you cannot doubt your craft. I have been doing this " music and theatre since childhood. So there was no self-doubt. I always believed in myself.

Your choices in terms of films have been slightly off-beat. Is it a conscious decision?

I don't know! Bewakoofiyan was a conventional rom-com but apart from that, every film was unconventional. Sometimes, you get close to the character and choose scripts with roles that are similar to you in real life as well. Dum Laga Ke Haisha is also different as I had to speak a language I didn't really know. There is this guy Mahesh in the film who was sent to Gujarat so I used to just eat with him, converse with him, that is how I picked up the accent. I can grasp languages easily.

You think this is one movie that has made you Ayushmann Khurrana beyond Vicky Donor because until now, VD was the only film that did really well.

Of course. Definitely and thank God for that. Nautanki Saala was a hit but the perception was that it didn't do well. My father thinks this is bigger than Vicky Donor and my mother thinks I have surpassed my debut film as well. I have grown a lot in this film for sure. It is also progressive like my debut film was, though in its own way. It speaks about woman emancipation. It is also about a guy who is very complex. As a nation, we have not really spoken about male emancipation. And this film talks about it.

How do you manage to juggle both singing and acting?

I used to unwind with music when I was anchoring on television but now it has become a part of my profession. If your passion is your profession, nothing can beat that. You are very lucky and fortunate that whatever comes naturally to you, you are doing it to earn a living. Not many people have the liberty of saying that. Every person who is an actor or an artist, is following that passion and you are getting paid to follow that, then you are just lucky.