Vijay Varma recently starred in the Netflix series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack, which depicts the harrowing events of December 24, 1999, when an Indian Airlines flight travelling from Kathmandu to New Delhi was hijacked. Released on August 29, 2024, the series features an impressive cast including Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Arvind Swamy, Dia Mirza and Vijay Varma. However, Vijay Varma’s journey in the acting industry wasn’t always smooth.
In a recent conversation with Indian Express, the actor reflected on his acting journey and revealed unknown anecdotes. “There were no offers until about post Gully Boy. Casting directors did believe in me, but I was not given a chance for a long, long time,” Vijay said.
For context, the handsome hunk made his acting debut with a notable short film, Shor, in 2008. Four years later, he made his feature film debut with Chittagong, directed by Bedabrata Pain. Then, he starred in Rangrezz, Gang of Ghosts, Pink, Raag Desh and many others. But it was only with Zoya Akhtar’s musical drama Gully Boy, released in 2019, starring Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt in lead roles, that Vijay got his breakthrough role as Moeen Arif. While the film was submitted as India’s entry to the Oscar, Vijay’s stardom skyrocketed like haywire.
Since then, the actor never looked back, and the hunger for good work motivated Vijay to give countless auditions. However, life was not easy for him even then. He revealed how he was dropped despite being locked for Saif Ali Khan’s role in Anurag Kashyap’s Scared Games (first episode released in 2018). Vijay said, “In some auditions, I was on the waitlist, in the top five, top two, and then I was locked, and then I was dropped! I was locked in Sacred Games, I did my costume measurements, and then I got dropped.”
But Vijay didn’t lose hope even after getting dropped from films. “Stuff like that has happened, but some part of me kept the faith and belief. Work started coming in after Gully Boy, but I think I was so starved for work, that I took a lot of it after the film,” he added.
Vijay then started getting offers for negative characters. Although he initially wasn’t able to realise the same, later, he wanted to break the industry’s notion of slotting him in negative roles. He shared, “When Darlings happened, I couldn’t imagine myself in that role, and then a series of roles happened where I was playing extremely devious, atrocious or devious men. A part of me wanted to break it, but I couldn’t possibly do it myself. I found great support in filmmakers, who said they had seen me like that and wanted to offer me something new.
Finally, Vijay explained how he landed in a good character. He said, “That’s how Sujoy Ghosh got me Jaane Jaan, where he decided to show me in a new light. Homi Adajania gave me Murder Mubarak, and Anubhav Sinha sir got me IC 814.”
“Someone who has just seen Darlings and Dahaad will not think this is the most noble character we have, and we want this guy to play him. The industry works in mysterious ways, when they see potential in you, they also want to give you the chance to tap on the other side of you. I didn’t break any stereotypes, because I didn’t make any stereotypes. They made it, they broke it,” Vijay concluded.
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