Ayushmann is not into astrology

It’s a well-known fact that he belongs to Chandigarh, Punjab, but not many know that Ayushmann Khurrana’s father, P Khurrana is a “wellknown astrologer in Punjab and north India”. Ask the actor-singer if he is also into astrology, and he says laughing, “Not at all.” The actor says his father believes in the theory of ‘karma’, and that if you have good karma, things will go your way. “I think that’s a practical way of looking at things,” he says.

The Vicky Donor (2012) actor reveals that his name has been spelt differently — with double ‘n’ in the first name and double ‘r’ in the last, since he was a child. He says, “After all, my father has been an astrologer since before I was born. In fact, this trend (spelling names differently) came quite late (in the rest of the country), and even later in Mumbai (smiles).”

But interestingly, his younger brother, Aparshakti’s (Khurana) name is spelt ‘normally’. “He didn’t require it [changing the name’s spellings], as his name was numerologically correct. My parents were looking for a name that had a normal spelling, and was right as per numerology. But they couldn’t find any. Whatever they found were very simple names, but Ayushmann was a unique one,” he adds.

Talking about work, Ayushmann has had a roller-coaster of a career so far. Does the box-office performance of his films bother him? “None of my films are huge. All of them are medium-budget films, and are not so expensive that they will create problems for me [in terms of recovering that money],” he says.

The Dum Laga Ke Haisha (2015) actor feels his only aim is that his films should do well enough to recover their investments. He says, “And by God’s grace, I think they do. I am confident that the kind of content my films have, they will reach a certain audience, which will generate that kind of money [that will help recover the money invested].”

Ask him if he aims to do big budget films as well, and he says, “That will depend on my films’ success rate.

So, it’s all about how well my films do, and how much money they earn. I think all the films have a budget, which is dependent on which actors star in it.”

Ayushmann adds that makers are always aware about the kind of budgets they can go with for a particular actor’s film. “They are always clear, and know that ‘with this actor, we can spend this much’. But I seriously believe that a film should have a big heart, and its content should be good. As far as the budget is concerned, it will go up as per an actor’s commercial success.”

Ayushmann Khurrana