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We recently saw him essay the role of Venu Nair in Param Sundari, a romantic comedy directed by Tushar Jalota and produced by Dinesh Vijan under Maddock Films. The film, starring Sidharth Malhotra and Janhvi Kapoor in the lead roles, marked his debut in Bollywood. We’re talking about Kollywood’s latest pin-up boy, Siddhartha Shankar — a Malaysian-born Tamil actor who made his film debut with Saithan (2016) and went on to appear in Sathya (2017) and Kadaram Kondan (2019). His breakthrough came with Kolai (2023), which he also co-produced and he was most recently seen in AR Murugadoss’ Madharaasi. We caught up with the good-looking actor to talk about his Bollywood debut and more…
Tell us about Param Sundari. How did you manage the Hindi dialogue?
It was fabulous, to be honest. It was a very different experience. As far as Hindi is concerned, I’ve just started learning it. I’m a trained actor, so, I’ve been taught how to grasp languages easily.
How was it working with Janhvi Kapoor?
Working with Janhvi was amazing. I admire her work ethic, so much. Janhvi comes from a big family, she has a legacy that she is carrying forward and you would expect someone like that to take it a little easy and not really push themselves; but I was quite pleasantly surprised to find it to be quite the opposite. I remember there was one day we were doing a scene till late night in Mumbai and then I see this reel and I see that she is walking for some fashion show somewhere and I thought it was an old reel. Then, I see her the next day on set and I am like, “hey when did this happen?” and she was like, “last night.” And I am like, “you are kidding me right? Okay, no doubt you had wrapped a little earlier than us but you decided to go there, do that show and then be here again at 5 am?” I found that very admirable.
And was Sidharth Malhotra equally amiable?
As far as Sidharth Malhotra is concerned, he was very warm and welcoming. I remember the first day on set we actually shot the climax scene and it was a little emotional. As soon as the take was over, first Janhvi said, “wow! That felt really real,” and then Sidharth was at the monitor and he congratulated me and said, “that’s really good, good stuff, keep ’em coming,” and you know I had a couple of moments with him alone on set and I remember like reminiscing and telling him, “I had zero idea that I would be in films nor did I want to be in films at the time but I have a friend in Malaysia who’s nuts about Bollywood and she dragged me for Student of the Year and I remember seeing you on screen and I really liked what you brought on screen… and cut to some 12-13 years later, I’m sitting next to you and I’m shooting a scene…” And he just told me, “you should be very proud of yourself.”
You took a short break from cinema for a while. What happened then?
I got an opportunity to work in production through film college and that journey took me four years and during those four years I didn’t take up any other film. I just immersed myself and wanted to learn the logistics and business end of things and that proved to be a great experience for me.
