Audience’s expectations push me to be a better actor: Vicky Kaushal

MUMBAI: Vicky Kaushal is on cloud nine after his films “Raazi” and “Lust Stories” receiving a great response from the audience and the actor says the expectations of the people drives him to do something different every time.
Vicky was recently seen in Meghna Gulzar’s spy drama and Karan Johar’s film in the Netflix anthology.
“Somebody who started in the industry knocking at so many doors and reaching where I have reached today, I feel privileged with every opportunity that I have got. It is a very beautiful feeling when the audience approves of your work.
“I feel nice when there are expectations from people as that is how you know the audience loves and cares for you and your work. I want them to expect something from me as that pushes me to be a better actor,” the actor said.
He also has two more films up for release, “Sanju”, the Sanjay Dutt biopic and “Uri”, based on Indian Army’s surgical strikes across the LoC.
“There are stories that affect, move you. They have their own zing. I get hooked. It is a huge responsibility on you and the director to tell a real-life story,” he says of the real-life based stories.
In “Sanju”, Vicky plays Dutt’s friend and he says it was “courageous” of the senior actor allowed director Rajkumar Hirani to make a movie on his life.
“All of us keep thriving to have normalcy in life. This man (Dutt) has only lived only at the top or at the bottom. He has seen the best and worst in life. He has not seen normalcy.
“I think it is courageous and generous of him to allow a filmmaker to make a film on him with complete honesty, with no filters,” he says.
Post the release of “Masaan”, Hirani had approached Vicky for “Sanju” and he says that it was a “huge positive shock” for him as he was just one film old.
“Hirani sir had told me he is still working on the script and that there will be many actors who will be contenders for this part. He just had this thought about me being part of the film and wanted to know what kind of roles I was looking forward to do. It was a basic meeting,” the actor says.
After meeting the director, Vicky started working on other films as it was almost a year and there was no response from the director.
While he was shooting for “Love Per Square Foot”, Hirani called him for the audition.
“Almost a year later, I got a call to test for this film. At the time I was shooting for ‘Love Per Square Foot’. We were going to shoot a dance portion so I had to wait between the shoot and rehearsals to do a look test for ‘Sanju’.
“… Usually I prep for auditions but this time I had to give it in a short time. I gave two-three takes of the scene I was given. I was praying and hoping I get this film and I could not analyse whether I was good or bad.”
A few days later, when Hirani called the “Raazi” actor to give him a narration, Vicky still was not aware that he had bagged “Sanju”.
“When he started enacting the scenes in front of me, I started laughing, crying. My excitement to do the film rose a hundred-fold. I asked him, ‘Sir what’s next, how do we take this forward’ and he said, ‘You are part of the film that is why I gave you the narration,” he says. (AGENCIES)