Quotes

Think and do good to others. Its good for your health, too!

[Commenting on how he got the role in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011)] It was a pretty straightforward route. I auditioned for the part and it worked at both ends. My role may be small but it is an important one. I have scenes with a bunch of members from both, the Indian and the English cast.

[Commenting on his first ever scene] My first shot was with Dharmendra in my first film. I was playing his brash son and the scene was an argument with him and I had to talk back to him. I was so in the zone, so well prepared, so rehearsed, so believed my character...that I never was nervous! I was on a high.

Richard Gere [co-star of The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015)] was fantastic to work with. He is friendly and chilled out. It was cool to see him shake a leg to Bollywood songs. He shared with us about a meditation session he went for in Udaipur, which he loved.

While it was heart-breaking when the second wave hit us, I feel fortunate that I was able to start and finish a couple of projects. Everyone is going through a crisis, I am just happy to be alive and safe, and doing my bit to make things better for those in need.

I was born and brought up in Mumbai. I'm what you call a 'townie' or a South Mumbai boy and continue spending a lot of my off time from work in that area and at the same home I lived as a child. Childhood was blissful without a cause for worry. It's only as a young adult that the smooth life dissipated!

I did my B.Sc in Computer Science and B.Com in Economics. I studied at the University of Texas at Austin, U.S.A. And I never did use any of that studying even once on a job. If only I knew that I'd take up acting as my profession!

After working on television early in my career (very much for the money), I decided that never will I take on any work that I'm not proud of. And since then, I've worked in movies (both Indian and international), television, on stage, short films, commercials and now even a web series coming up....but never have I done work that I can't watch myself or am not proud of.

Dhadkan Zindaggi Kii (2021)had a good script and I liked the message it is trying to convey to audiences. [In the show] I play a visionary entrepreneur. My character portrays that it is important to be self-made and a feminist, who believes in women empowerment. I identify with the character. I have always believed that women should have a voice of their own and it comes from my upbringing. My mother [Madhu] is a strong personality and I have learned a lot from her.

I'm obsessed with smelling good - I wear cologne to bed even when I'm alone.

I stopped working six months before the pandemic struck us. My father passed away after a prolonged illness. I decided to take a sabbatical but didn't expect it to be so long. I used the forced break productively by reorganizing myself emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

I am at a point in my life and career, where I love to act and acting is more important than the medium.

[Commenting on his parents reaction to his decision to take up acting as a career] My mother's [Madhu's] initial reaction was 'Mera Beta Paagal ho Gaya Hai!' She didn't talk to me for a while. My father [Surinder Makkar] was supportive and secretively happy, acting being his unfulfilled ambition. He just laid one condition 'Stick with it come what may'; and my condition to him was - 'You handle Mom'. And we both have stuck to our promises and today my folks are very proud parents!