Mumbai: Vijay Varma recently reflected on his early years in the film industry, revealing that success came much later despite a promising beginning.
The actor shared that before gaining popularity with ‘Gully Boy’, he went through long phases without work.
Varma recalled that even after working on a film that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, he struggled to find opportunities and often remained idle.
Despite once flying on a charter plane with Amitabh Bachchan, his career did not immediately take off.
Varma, awaiting the release of his Prime Video series ‘Matka King’, spoke to PTI during promotions and opened up about the challenges he faced during his early acting journey.
“The first festival that I went to was Cannes with my film ‘Monsoon Shootout’, before anything had been released. I could not have done a bigger dhamaka (blast) than this, but after this, I was sitting idle for many years,” the actor said.
“From not having any work to doing smaller roles and then being restricted to them, it was hard to break out and do anything that is not a small part or not a friend who is giving a high five to the hero. Then they offered me a big villain, and they put me in that bracket very strongly. I’m like, ‘I’m bigger than this, I can do more, break out of that and do something else.’ Every time somebody tries to put me in any kind of a cage or a mould, my tendency is to just break it open,” he continued.
After delivering notable performances in ‘Darlings’, ‘Dahaad’, and ‘Mirzapur’, Vijay will now play a gambling boss in ‘Matka King’, a show inspired by real life
The show also features Kritika Kamra, Gulshan Grover, Sai Tamhankar, Siddharth Jadhav, Girish Kulkarni, and Jamie Lever in prominent roles.
Produced by Siddharth Roy Kapur, Nagraj Popatrao Manjule, Gargi Kulkarni, Ashwini Sidwani, and Ashish Aryan, under the banners of Roy Kapur Films, Aatpat, and SMR Productions, ‘Matka King’ will start streaming on Amazon Prime Video from April 17.
