
Meet actor who started career with TV, then worked in a Shah Rukh Khan film, is now a star, his name is..
Who is this handsome hunk who made fans swoon for over a decade?
Sidharth Malhotra — the boy who shared screen space with Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan in Student of the Year — has come a long way from campus rom-coms to uniformed heroism. But few know he started his career not in front of the camera, but behind it.
Was Sidharth Malhotra always meant to be on screen?
Not quite. Long before his Bollywood debut in 2012, Sidharth was grinding quietly. He began as a model but found his first acting break in 2009's historical TV series Dharti Ka Veer Yodha Prithviraj Chauhan, where he played the role of Jai Chand.
Sidharth Malhotra was an Assistant Director
Yes. His big break came not with a role, but with a credit behind the scenes. In 2010, he assisted Karan Johar on My Name Is Khan, where he worked closely with SRK and Kajol. Interestingly, Varun Dhawan was also on the same team.
From Student to Shershaah, how did the shift happen?
Though Student of the Year gave him a glittery start, his true moment came with Shershaah (2021), where he portrayed Kargil hero Captain Vikram Batra. The film didn't hit theatres, but it broke streaming records and earned him critical acclaim.
Over 13 years, he's shown his range, from romantic leads in Hasee Toh Phasee and Kapoor & Sons to gritty roles in Ek Villain and Marjaavaan.
Post-Shershaah, he's stepped into a new role, that of a husband. But with new projects lined up and a loyal fan base, it's clear that his cinematic journey is far from over.
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Gill's head is still as he waits for the ball, he does not fidget, and there is a precise economy to the movement of his feet, decisively forward or back, that dictates what his hands must do for the middle of the bat to meet the essays every shot in the book, most with a polish that belies his relative youth and inexperience, but he does not play favourites, simply choosing the most appropriate response to the question the bowler has asked with a particular delivery. Gill's flannels are a Surf-tinted bluewhite, uncreased and form-fitting; his conspicuous lack of facial hair matches his short crop, and his tattoos are well hidden in all his public appearances. If you are a fan of stereotypes, Gill is what you would call a good boy, the kind who might be cast as the teacher's pet or a suitable boy in Bollywood. But, of course, judging him for his conformity is as much of a fool's errand, and would be as big a mistake as swinging to the other end of the spectrum and being automatically suspicious of or looking down at someone who does not fit your idea of mainstream. While perception and its consequences are unavoidable to most, Gill is not one of them. He is successful, young, financially set for the rest of his life, at the top of his profession, which also happens to be his passion, and has the rare opportunity to be true to to live his best life, to find his full stretch potential, Gill will find out very quickly that there is no substitute for knowing himself. In his three-game tenure as Test captain, Gill has already been called out for not being remonstrative enough on the field in one match, allowing the game to drift in another and needling the wrong man in the opposition camp in the Gill gesticulated aggressively to England's Zak Crawley at the third Test match at Lord's, telling him to 'grow a f***ing pair of balls', something looked distinctly off, and predictably it backfired. In all his international and IPL appearances thus far, nobody had seen this side of Gill. In the heat of the battle, true character can reveal itself, unbidden, but this looked more like a case of trying too hard to be something he was not, even trying to be what he thought his followers expected of Virat Kohli tells his bowlers to give the opposition '60 overs of hell' and spends every minute on the field spoiling for a fight or winding up the crowd, it is an extension of his personality, or at the very least his cricketing persona, not an effort he aggression, while mostly controlled, is rarely contrived. And for this reason, it worked best for him and the teams he led. Rahul Dravid can be Indira Nagar ka gunda in an ironic commercial long after retirement, but he knew better than to play to that section of the gallery when his primary role was to win cricket matches. Dravid is as aggressive as any cricketer to have played the game, but his brand is characterised by relentlessness, concentration, defiance and, ultimately, results. Gill's out-of-character performance seemed to be reflected in his team. Remember Washington Sundar talking about how special it would be when (not if) India won the Lord's Test on the fifth day? Sportsmen projecting confidence that borders on cockiness is nothing new, but when they believe their own hype, the game, just as life, has a habit of coming back to bite them where they are most vulnerable, to remind them of their place in the larger scheme of things. England beat India by 22 runs in the third Test. The sooner Gill embarks on his inward journey of self-discovery, the smaller the price he will have to pay for lessons learnt along the way. The more honestly Gill embraces his 'incomparable uniqueness, it also implies becoming one's own self,' as Carl Jung put it, although he was speaking to something much larger and more profound than the captaincy of a cricket team. In other words, if Gill is indeed vanilla in an age of caramel sea salt, bacon and wasabi ice creams, he should neither be apologetic about it nor fear that it will make him more ordinary. After all, every global audit tells us that vanilla is the most bought flavour on the shelf because it is unfailingly true to itself and refuses to sell its soul. (The writer is former joint editor-in-chief, Wisden India)