Amol Parashar had a tremendous 2021 with successful projects like Feels Like Ishq, Sardar Udham and Cash. And being a person who has followed him from his initial days, seeing his growth and the recognition that he has deservedly achieved, just fills me with pride. Last night, the actor had a candid conversation with our bosslady Malini Agarwal, where he divulged some unknown facts about him, and trust me, they have presented a completely new side of him to me that I adore and love as much. Here are a few of these that I am sure that you would also love.
The first time he had a drink with his father
“A lot of people wanted to do things like we did as a family in the show Tripling, like having a drink with their father. I myself had a drink with my father for the first time last year. I had moved my parents to Mumbai as they are retired, eased out and a little more comfortable with where I am in my life and my life choices now. Once in a while my father likes to drink and my mother disapproves of it, but last year there was no disapproval from her. There was encouragement from my father to have a drink together.”
His hesitation to do Sardar Udham
“This is a secret I haven’t told many people that initially I wasn’t too sure of doing Sardar Udham because I didn’t know what it was gonna be like. I knew they were making a film on Sardar Udham and my first reaction was that if the film is about him, what am I gonna do. I wasn’t sure because there are times when people call you for certain roles but you know they won’t work out. I have been told many times that I am too urban for some roles. but when I got into the process and worked with the team and Shoojit (Sircar) sir, I realised what their vision was. My image of Bhagat Singh was also formed by the films that I had seen, but that was the first thing I was told that forget all that you have seen, we will just go by the facts we have from history and we will go interpret them according to our brains. We will create a real person out of that and not depend on someone else’s imagination. That was interesting and slowly it kind of dawned, why me.”
His imaginary world as Rishi Kapoor’s son
“When I was very young, I had this fascination towards Mr Rishi Kapoor, also because maybe the first film I ever remember seeing in theatre was his. As a small kid, you have imaginary friends, and in my imagination, I had formed a world where I was his son. I was actually Rishi Kapoor’s son who had been given to a middle-class normal family to raise. And then, one day he will come and take me back. And the funny thing is that the first time I actually acted in front of camera, it was with his actual son.”
Him playing young Rishi Kapoor
“Years down the line, I was almost going to play Rishi Kapoor. Khaled Mohammad was making a theatrical production about a romance from his life that is not talked about, and it was before Neetu ji came into his life. And they had chosen me to play the young Rishi Kapoor in the look from Bobby, which was approved by him. I didn’t get to meet him but in some room he was shown my picture and he said okay.”
His equation with his sister
“I have a younger sister and our equation is quite dysfunctional. She is in Europe and she doesn’t have any plan of coming back as such. So, we are not in touch with each other on a day-to-day basis. We will chat like once in 2-3 months or on major events. But for me, it’s changing a little bit.
We’ve had these conversations a few times where I have tried to be a good person telling her to be nice to other people, and she’ll be like, ‘Don’t pakao me, papa ki tarah baat mat karo.’ She is very happy about the success and recognition that I have achieved, but she is also surprised that many of her female friends have a crush on me as it’s very difficult to believe it for sisters about their brothers. She is just rolling her eyes on that and that’s more or less the kind of equation we have.”
It was an amazing conversation that made me familiar with ‘Amol Parashar, the human being’ who has a family like mine and dreams and desire to make it big like me. I feel a new sense of connection with Amol now and after reading this, I am sure you would too.