I believe in swimming against the tide: The White Tiger actor Adarsh Gourav

Actor Adarsh Gourav is truly living up to his name –setting
the right example with his film choices and making a mark. His most recent
success being ‘The White Tiger’ also starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas. His portrayal of Balram Halwai, a village lad
who transcends the psychology of servitude, won him lead actor nomination in
this year’s BAFTAs.

The 26-year-old calls it ‘surreal’ to be on the same list as
the likes of Tom Hanks and Anthony Hopkins. He says sharing space with these greats is his victory moment.

Adarsh, who is now hailed as the breakout star, talks about
his love towards characters that draw from reality, why movie making is like a
relationship, and his take on ‘quintessential Bollywood films’.

Here are the excerpts from the interview with the actor.

Opoyi: How will you define your transformation as an actor over the
years?

Ans. Just been able
to afford an AC in my living room so I am glad (he smiles) and otherwise I am
reading a lot of scripts, giving lots of auditions and it’s nice to get in
touch with good directors, filmmakers whom I respect. People are approaching me
and I am just hoping to convert one of these opportunities to something
substantial. I am really excited about this.

Opoyi: Did you prepare
your acceptance speech if you win the BAFTA lead actor award?

Ans. I probably
would thank my family for always believing in me. They are the biggest reason
why I am an actor today, for letting me be myself, letting me take chances
myself, and backing me. I come from a family that doesn’t have anyone who has
made a career in any form of arts so it becomes really difficult for the
parents and the family to believe in me so I guess under such circumstances,
choosing something like this was a risky decision but they never let me feel
like it’s a risky decision.

They always
supported me, encouraged me and they trusted me so that gave me the confidence
to go in life. Of course, somebody like Ramin (Ramin Bahrani, the director of
‘The White Tiger’) believed in me and thought that an actor like me has the
potential to play a character as complex as Balram who plays central characters
in such a big Netflix film.

Opoyi: And if you don’t
win the award?

Ans:  I haven’t been
thinking about this honestly. The fact that I got nominated alongside actors
like Anthony Hopkins is in itself a victory so I don’t expect anything else and
I don’t think about it. I feel that there are a lot more other things I should
be focusing on than thinking about BAFTAs right now. It’s only my first
international film and I am truly grateful for everything that has happened but
I generally try not to think about it. I have a couple of really important
scripts that I am reading right now and I just hope that I can work on that.

Opoyi: How did you
react when you saw your name as one of the BAFTA lead actor nominations?

Ans. I was really
surprised and shocked to see my name there. My reaction was that may be I am
not reading that correctly.

Opoyi: Did you set any
benchmark for yourself as an actor after ‘The White Tiger’?

Ans: I don’t have
any benchmarks. I want to enjoy whichever film I am part of. I want to work
with great directors and I want to work on stories that have different
storylines. I enjoy working with people who have a different way of looking at
things. We often try to compete in every kind of relationship that we make and
when I become part of any film or work with any director, it is sort of like
that because I am trying to do something new, something that hasn’t been done
before or feel like something worth taking the risk.

Opoyi: What kind of
projects attracts you more as an actor?

Ans: I just like to
draw from reality and play characters that I feel people have never seen in
real life or would like to see. I feel that all of us are flawed in some ways.
Nobody is perfect and there is always something that bothers us about us and
this is very normal. So I attempt to constantly play such people. I like
working in real space but I also enjoy surrealism and magic realism. I like to
play real and relatable characters but I also like to watch things that are in
the magic realism space like ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit’.

Opoyi: So are you open
to do commercial Bollywood films?

Ans: I don’t know.
I have never done a commercial Bollywood picture but I am open to that. There
is something attractive about playing the aspirational character too and I
think that’s why it is quintessential Bollywood films. When you look at those
characters, you aspire to be like them. They are not necessarily people that
are around us. You try to copy them in some way so if something interesting comes
up like that then why not

Opoyi: Have your
ambitions changed after ‘The White Tiger’ or do you believe in going with the
flow?

Ans: I don’t
believe in going with the flow. I believe in swimming against the tide. I don’t
have any ambition as such but I want to constantly challenge myself as an actor
and keep evolving as a person. I just don’t want to work on films but also want
to work on myself as in like who I am as a human being so it could mean a lot
of different things, it could mean collecting different experiences in life,
whether it is through travel or by putting myself in a situation that I haven’t
been before. The idea is to just grow as an individual so that I can make
better films. I feel that as an actor you constantly grow so my idea has always
been to grow as a person too, read books, watch films, talk to more people and
hopefully in all this, you keep on doing good films.

Opoyi: Achieving
stardom at such a young age? How will you react if your next film flops?

Ans:  I want to be
part of good films irrespective of how they do. I think you work for yourself
and if you are confident of what you do and you surround yourself with people
who believe in what they do and they don’t do to please other people, people
automatically get interested in what you do. So the success or failure is
really a consequence of how much you believe in what you do but again it’s not
something that I think about.