Actor Vicky Kaushal is the nation’s heartthrob and he knows it. In a new interview, he spoke about his journey in Bollywood so far, his legion of female fans and, of course, Karan Johar’s house party with allegations of drug abuse that followed.
Karan Johar had shared a video from his house party that was attended by Deepika Padukone, Vicky, Ranbir Kapoor, Varun Dhawan and Shahid Kapoor among others. A political leader had claimed that drug abuse took place at the party, basing his claim on the video.
Vicky, who was recovering from dengue at the time of the party and later left for Arunachal Pradesh for a show with the Indian Army, said he had no idea about the media frenzy that followed. “It was a very chilled-out party. That video is put out. And right after, I am in the hills in Arunachal Pradesh, with the Army, for three-four days, where there is no network. Obviously I don’t know. And I have no clue that I’ve become the ‘charsi of the country’! I come back to Mumbai, and my mom and dad know everything. They have been watching the news. They didn’t tell me before, because I would get affected, sitting there [in Arunachal]. So I head to my room. Before going off to sleep, I get on Twitter, and then I’m like, “Hain? FIR! Yeh kya hua?” I’m looking at those videos circling, white thing, and light falling on the floor…”
“So I rushed out of my room to check if my mom and dad knew about this. And then they just gave a smile, and said, don’t worry. I was, like, okay, as long as they know, I’m sorted. Then the next day it started affecting me again, with TV channels circling my face in red!”
Vicky also spoke about all the female attention he had been getting. He mentioned how it was obviously a pleasant feeling, and he also knows that there far more handsome and sexy men around but it is the “relatability” factor of his work which resonates with girls too. “But, yeah, the heartthrob element also takes me by surprise a bit. I think it is a very pleasant feeling. It’s got a lot to do with the characters I’ve played, and that they’ve resonated.”
“It’s not like I’m the handsomest man ever. There are much sexier men, with better physique and charisma. The difference is that my work has resonated with the audience, so there’s relatability with this guy, on screen — that’s the edge. Tomorrow there’ll be another one, whose works will resonate, and he’ll become the heartthrob. I’m not the first or last such. It is part and parcel.”
And what was the craziest fan encounter he had had so far? That was when a female fan had landed up at his residence and talked with his parents, insisting that she had been chatting with Vicky on Facebook for months. This when his mother knew that Vicky didn’t use Facebook. The girl had said, “Vicky had called me to his house. We chatted on Facebook.” After that incident, Vicky had got many fake accounts closed and started a verified account. “She found it very difficult to believe that it wasn’t me that she had been talking to, all along. Apart from that incident, the experiences have all been sweet.”
Vicky has four interesting films lined up — he has just wrapped Bhoot Part One: The Haunted Ship, he has been shooting for Shoojit Sircar’s Udham Singh biopic, he will begin work on Karan Johar’s Takht next year (the film in pre-production) and he also has Meghna Gulzar’s biopic on Sam Manekshaw.
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