Jaideep Ahlawat recalls living with 6 people in 1BHK during struggle; Jitendra Kumar says he quit acting 3 months after coming to Mumbai: ‘We all would just lay together in the hall'

Indian Express

a day ago

The latest episode of The Great Indian Kapil Show featured Jaideep Ahlawat, Vijay Varma, Jitendra Kumar, and Pratik Gandhi. Kapil Sharma has now shared a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the episode, where the actors are seen opening up about their early struggles in the film industry.
During the conversation, Jaideep Ahlawat spoke about sharing a small apartment in Mumbai with five other people at the beginning of his career. He recalled, 'We were only two people in the beginning, but then we became six people in one BHK because someone or the other would ask for a place to stay, and we would allow them to stay with us. So the bedroom of my house was filled with clothes, and we all would just lay together in the open kitchen and hall. But we had fun, there was no sadness about it.'
Pratik Gandhi also opened up about his tough days. He remembered how his role was chopped off from Ajay Devgn's film Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji. 'I was playing a small role in the film. I even auditioned for the role but when the film released, I realised that my role has been cut.' Pratik, however, admitted that he avoided any embarrassment as he hadn't told anyone about being in the film. 'But the good part was that I didn't tell anyone that I was a part of the film.'
Panchayat star Jitendra Kumar, who is an IIT graduate, shared that he had actually quit acting and left Mumbai just three months after moving to the city. He even applied to the National School of Drama (NSD), but was rejected. 'When I was leaving in the train after three months of coming to Bombay, I told myself that I'm going to come back and I came back, and thankfully, people liked my work,' he said.
Jitendra also shared a memory of meeting veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah on the IIT Kharagpur campus. At the time, he and a senior were making a short film. Upon spotting Shah, Jitendra got so excited that he ended up annoying the actor. Fortunately, his senior handled the situation by requesting Shah to bless their script. The veteran actor, however, dismissed the idea, telling them that blessings wouldn't help and that they needed to rehearse a lot if they wanted to make a good film.