Ranveer Singh knew he wanted to be an actor ever since he was a kid. The rush he felt while onstage in a college theatre production just pushed him into the direction he knew he always wanted to head in.
But the 31-year-old he is today sees that there is a price to pay—one that’s exacted by smartphones and their high-definition cameras. Singh struggles with being a private person in a public sphere. “I was playing a football game downstairs with the building kids today and there were people standing around taking pictures and videos. Did they even bother to ask if they could film me? I make it a point to educate people that it’s not cool to film me without my permission. Before football, I was lifting weights in the gym and there were people who were filming me doing that too!”
Part of the fascination with Singh is the story of his romance with co-star Deepika Padukone. They even have their own hashtag, and fans are very protective of #DeepVeer. But rumours of a break-up have been swirling around in the run-up to the release of his next film, Aditya Chopra’s Befikre, out this month, in which he and Vaani Kapoor seem to have sizzling chemistry. Since neither he nor Padukone have addressed these rumours, speculation runs wild and every citizen with a camera becomes the paparazzi.
“This is why I feel trapped in Bombay…in most parts of India,” the actor adds, wistfully. “There are people in my building who take pictures of me entering the elevator. I’m not even doing anything remotely exciting. I’m going from point A to point B. And this is my home. But sometimes it feels like a glass box. Can you imagine if your home felt like that? How trapped you would feel? But I know there’s no way around it. So I try to focus on the good aspects. Fame, stardom, these are all frills—what lies at the core is acting.”
An excerpt from the interview featured in ELLE India's December 2016 issue. Click here to subscribe to the magazine and the digital version.
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By Neville Bhandara December 7th, 2016
