“People should be allowed to take more from you than what they can offer”

He is the perfect example of excellence. The finest actor, true to his craft, with his robust and deep voice and expressive eyes, Varun Badola puts a soul in each character that he plays. The one, who has outdone himself, with each role he has essayed. Varun is unpretentious and honest to the core and this reflects in diverse roles he has played. A glorious example is ‘Amber Sharma of Mere Dad ki Dulhan’, Varun is phenomenal, receiving lot of critical acclaim as well as huge popularity with his dynamic portrayal. We spoke to the actor on his music preferences, his opinion on whether acting can be learnt and much more in this exclusive interview…

How much you identify with Amber Sharma, the complex character of the blockbuster show ‘Mere Dad ki Dulhan’, which shows many shades…

Well I am nothing like Amber Sharma in real life. I am not that short-tempered in real lie. I have recently experienced what it means to be a father to a daughter thanks to Bacchu ( referring to her on-screen daughter, Niya) . No, there is no similarity between the two of us.

Amber Sharma is fond of music, specially Kishore kumar Songs..what is your kind of music?

I do like Kishore kumar songs. But as far as music goes, I listen to Indian classicial to Psychedelic rock, Jazz to everything.

Varun, we know that you have spent growing up years in Delhi. Will you please share your Delhi memories…

I still believe that Delhi is home whereas Mumbai is office. All my ‘go to’ friends are here in Delhi, so that’s how strong the association is.

Which has been your favorite character that you have played so far?

That’s a very difficult question. Every character that you play takes a lot out of you. There have been characters which got popular but I did not enjoy them at all and there have been once which reached nowhere but took a lot of effort working on them. I would say that Koshish – Ek Asha was the one. it was the beginning and very challenging too. Apart from that, the characters of Astitva and Ek Chaabi hai Pados Mein were very very good. They got popular too and the experience of executing those characters was phenomenal.

You have a penchant for writing….please tell us about your writing endeavours..

I am a writer by accident. I was an assistant director and an additional dialogue writer to Tigmanshu Dhulia for the longest time. But I aspired to be an actor so I did not pursue direction at that time. I did write few episodes of ‘Astitva’ every month but then since I was acting too, It got very hectic. But then Siddharth Sengupta of Ek Chaabi Hai Pados Mein asked me to do dialogues. Though we had a dialogue writer, but then he was told that I could write and wanted to get a few scenes changed. It just so happened that I ended up changing 99% of the scenes in the first 5 episodes. Then he again came back to me in 2017 and asked to write ‘Aparahan’ and then ‘Andekhi’. I just write for friends and for people I have social comfort level with.

What is your opinion about content on Television right now and how can it be made more relevant to the younger audience who is consuming social media in a big way?

The performance of Mere Dad ki Dulhan becomes very important in today’s perspective as it proves that good content really works. Very meticulously, the channels and the makers in the recent years, degenerated the whole scenario. They could have done a lot better. Television cannot be made into a demand and supply market. If you remember, when Doordarshan was the main channel, we used to have some of the brilliant stories on air as people made the content which they wanted to make.

Varun would like to know your advice to the young generation how dramatics can be a career option…can acting be learnt?

The jury is still out on this question. And it’s pretty divided on that. Acting can be enhanced, if not learnt. You need to have that seed of acting inside you for the flower to grow. One can always go on to become a better actor.


Which actor you really appreciate and why?

For me, Robert DeNiro has been the pinnacle of performance. I have been his die-hard fan. In my growing up years, I followed DeNiro a lot. The way he has executed his characters, his complete approach, the way he works on his physical self is all very impressive. It is hard to believe that he did Raging Bull on one hand and The King of Comedy on the other. So just look at the range of characters played by him.

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