‘Don’t have relatives in Bollywood; waited for 10 years to get a movie’
Actor Darshan Pandya is finally happy that he has got his big screen debut in the form of Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran where he played the role of a Pakistani spy, who is out to thwart the plans of India to conduct its second nuclear tests, which took place in Pokhran.
“It took me ten years to get a film, [since] I don’t have any relatives in Bollywood. I wanted to do a film from the first day [when I decided to become an actor], but it didn’t happen. It took me television, and stage shows to get Parmanu,” he says, adding it isn’t as if there were no film offers altogether.
“Chhote roles toh aate rehte the, lekin har cheez materialise nahi hoti hai (I was often offered small parts, but not everything that comes your way gets materialised,” says the actor, adding that he was offered Qaidi Band, which he couldn’t do.
“There was a good role, but I couldn’t do it, though I don’t regret that. I did use to regret earlier ‘yeh nahi hua, yeh character nahi mila’, and that was there because I used to plan a lot, that I would do this and that. I soon realised that nothing happens according to how you plan it. I understood that I should not waste my time on planning, and go with the flow. I stopped regretting,” says Darshan, who studied engineering, and gradually drifted towards acting.
However, his first job is bound to surprise you. “Though I am an engineer, I did the job of a salesman, doing theatre side-by-side. I did the job for one and a half year, then left it to do plays, and that’s how my professional career began,” he shares.