Jay Khanna made me value life more: Sidhant Gupta

It took Sidhant Gupta eight years to make a mark in Bollywood with ‘Jubilee’. Having made his debut in the 2015 romantic film ‘Badmashiyaan’, this Jammu-born actor found his fame with Vikramaditya Motwane’s period drama ‘Jubilee’, which has now attained cult status.

In ‘Jubilee’, Sidhant plays Jay Khanna, a happy-go-lucky theatre director from Karachi. But after partition, Jay and his entire family had to put up at a refugee camp in Mumbai. However, his dreams of doing something big on the silver screen never left him.

In one of the most path-breaking performances this year, Sidhant is elated with all the love coming his way.

“When you give everything to a character, it gives something to you in return. Jay Khanna has made me value life more. Jay Khanna is a free-spirited soul. At least he tries to be free and believes in the magic of life. When you play a character like that, you just want to hold onto it,” said Gupta during a promotional tour of ‘Jubilee’ in Kolkata.

Not many know, before his big screen stint in ‘Badmashiyaan’, he enjoyed his journey on television with ‘Tashan-E-Ishq’ and ‘Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 9’. He even tried his luck in films with ‘Bhoomi’ and ‘Operation Romeo’. Later, he auditioned for Jay Khanna in ‘Jubilee’ and there was no looking back for the 34-year-old actor.

Given that his character hails from Karachi and lands in Mumbai post-partition, Sidhant did his research to make Jay Khanna authentic on screen.

“When the script came to me, it just consumed me. It is an incredibly written character. But I also did my research. Since Jay Khanna comes from Karachi, I studied the life and people of Karachi during that time. I read how people enjoyed watching Charlie Chaplin films and parties. The partition was painful. You stay in a house for 25 years and suddenly, you are sent to another country. But the pace of life was slower at that time and people had more time for each other,” he said.

He said working with Vikramaditya Motwane has been a lifetime experience for him. “He trusts you completely. It was my greatest blessing to work with him,” said Sidhant, who enjoyed digging into ‘bhetki’ fish in Kolkata.