Before they get their first big Bollywood break, almost every struggling actor has to got through a rite of passage called an ‘Acting Class’. Be it a star kid or an outsider, going through a series of training sessions which include acting, dancing, fighting and horse-riding (yes!) has been a norm since the 80s.
In the digital age, some of those old auditions and training footage may resurface on a public platform. A star who has found his place under the spotlight can either look back and cringe at those raw, amateur takes or feel happy about the ground he or she has covered since the days of being a mere ‘struggler’.
Take a look at some footage we found of Ranveer Singh and Anushka Sharma on the internet.
Before Band Bajaa Baraat happened, Ranveer Singh was a regular struggler who went through certain acting exercises with other aspiring actors at Kishore Namit Kapoor’s acting classes. In the video clip below we see a perception exercise which goes hilariously wrong by the time Ranveer Singh gets his chance to perform (at 02:26 in the timeline) :
Yes, we all know that Anushka Sharma did a fabulous job in NH 10, but there was a time when the actress was struggling to get used to glycerine in her eyes! Watch this video in which Anushka gears up to play a drama queen.
Before Irrfan Khan became the much sought after actor that he is now in Hollywood, he seemed to have done an audition for Ridley Scott’s action-spy thriller Body of Lies (2008). In this video clip below, we see Irrfan auditioning for the role of Hani Salaam, head of the Jordanian General Intelliegence Directorate. What’s most interesting about this clip is that - the blindfolded guy he interrogates appears to be none other than Nawazuddin Siddique (listen carefully)!
And finally we have Robert De Niro auditioning for the role of Sonny Corleone for Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. De Niro surprisingly didn’t make the cut and was rejected, but he came back as the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II, for which he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)