Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Heeramandi features father-son duo Shekhar Suman and Adhyayan Suman along with actors like Manisha Koirala, Richa Chaddha and Fardeen Khan.
The actor said there was a point in his career where he felt “broken” and wanted to give up.
The actor said the most difficult part of the phase was seeing his parents’ pain as they supported him.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Shekhar Suman (@shekhusuman)Adhyayan confesses that looking back, he feels his parents spoiled him.
“I could have gotten into drugs, I could have become an alcoholic, but I did none of that.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Heeramandi features father-son duo Shekhar Suman and Adhyayan Suman along with actors like Manisha Koirala, Richa Chaddha and Fardeen Khan. The much anticipated web-series, the filmmaker’s OTT debut, recently dropped on Netflix. Adhyayan, who plays Zoravar Ali Khan in the drama series, spoke to indianexpress.com about long stretch when he was out of work even after delivering two relatively successful films in 2008.
The actor said there was a point in his career where he felt “broken” and wanted to give up. The actor said the most difficult part of the phase was seeing his parents’ pain as they supported him. He is confident that Heeramandi will “change people’s opinion of him”.
Also read – Heeramandi: Sanjay Leela Bhansali outdoes Padmaavat climax with the most offensive scene of his career, continues glamourising the suffering of women
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Adhyayan S Suman (@adhyayansuman)
As he sits in his father’s office, a part of his four-floor penthouse in Mumbai’s posh Lokhandwala neighbourhood, the 36-year-old revisited his journey and how initial success was followed by long years of no work. He made his acting debut in 2008 with Raaz 2 and Jashnn bringing him success in 2009. However, it didn’t exactly go as expected for him. His films were suddenly shelved, and personal controversies followed. “It has been a long journey. There were times I felt tired, when I felt I wanted to give up, when there was absolute darkness and when you see light in the form of Heeramandi, which in turn for me is Mr Bhansali, who is the light of my life.”
Advertisement
Adhyayan shared how his parents — father Shekhar Suman and mother Alka Suman — helped him cope. “I don’t want to delve into the past but I have been through some tough times and he has been through the thick and thin. My mother is very emotional. While my father is quite emotional, he doesn’t share his feelings as freely. A lot of times, I get to know his thought about me via his interviews. he doesn’t talk so openly at home,” he says.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Shekhar Suman (@shekhusuman)
Adhyayan confesses that looking back, he feels his parents spoiled him. He reminiscences, “I have always been spoiled by my father. I was sent to one of the best, most expensive schools in the world, in the UK; they then sent me to the New York Film School. I was living alone, not sharing my apartments, cars, houses, but you have to understand that I never ever took advantage of that. I was always very focused. I could have lived a very cushy life during the last eight years, but I know how I felt. Even the four-floor penthouse felt like a luxury jail to me. I felt this is not where I want to be; I felt caged. I wanted to go out and make a mark for myself. I wanted to go out and work, make my parents proud, feel a sense of success as an individual but it wasn’t happening and it got really tough for me.”
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Adhyayan S Suman (@adhyayansuman)
He says that his parents’ support and his conviction in himself helped him from succumbing to drug abuse and alcoholism. “I could have gotten into drugs, I could have become an alcoholic, but I did none of that. I had a lot of emotional baggage in my life, I don’t anymore. My parents lost their son, my brother, early on. It was painful, you think about all these things… You are the only kid in the family, would you want to hurt your parents any further by taking the wrong path in life? So I used to talk to myself a lot, that was the only way I convinced myself to wake up every morning and fight, do my thing, make those phone calls to people and do auditions, do everything you need to do in the periphery as an actor.”
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Adhyayan S Suman (@adhyayansuman)
However, Adhyayan is now more than ready to face the camera. He says, “I probably didn’t hold enough star value for people to cast me in films. Post 2012, all my films shut down despite Raaz being a successful film and Jashnn getting critical acclaim in the same year (2009). It took me a long time to accept what was going on. Usually when you have successful films, you end up signing ten more films and the law of averages comes into place where your 7-8 films don’t work but 2-3 of them do and then you sign another set of ten films. But that circle never happened with me. Me, my parents and a few people tried to sit and figure it out. However, I realised that I was wasting too much time doing this. I don’t have an answer, and that the only way forward for me is to fight.”
“But I got up every morning and did what I had to. Acting offers weren’t coming so I took to singing. I spent a year in New York Film Academy, got a degree in film direction and then I wanted to put it to use. I could never have imagined myself doing all the things I can do today — acting, directing, writing, singing, producing a biopic. I had no idea I was capable of doing all these things. That is the beauty of life.”
