With back-to-back shows and films such as Guns & Gulaabs, Bad Cop, and now Ulajh, Gulshan Devaiah seems to be on a roll, and the actor credits it to his attitude of not being too "result-oriented".
Gulshan said that, very early in his life, he learned that whenever he was too focused on the end result, things turned out to be bad. In an interview with PTI, Gulshan said, “In my life, whenever I have been result-oriented, I have failed. Career wise, whenever I have tried to be funny or tried to entertain people consciously, it didn't work. I have to just focus on what I am doing and try to do my best. So, my approach to my career, and my craft is also like that. If I find something interesting, I will do it.”
The actor, known for his work in Shaitan (2011), Hunterrr (2015), Badhaai Do (2022), and Dahaad (2023), said he does not try to calculate or control things like whether people are going to watch the projects he stars in or how they are going to respond to his characters, the scale of the release of a film and its box office prospects.
“We are all human, so sometimes you are not able to give your best but that's life. Everything else is incidental, the results will come, and they are always incidental. It's the process and how you approach it and what you do with your skill sets (that matters). This perspective is good for me and it keeps my ego in check. The moment I feel that I get result-oriented, I am going to lose the plot,” he added.
Gulshan said he is more visible now because he is offered “more interesting” things thanks to OTT platforms where long-format storytelling has been empowered and “writers and directors” are given more power.
“It creates more opportunities for people like me, the technicians and everybody else. There's more work going around. So, that's the reason why I was a bit slow towards the beginning of my career but now it's a bit more frequent, like two or three projects a year,” the actor said.
Gulshan, 46, said with more opportunities, he has to be mindful of the potential drawbacks of overcommitting and the toll it may take on his health.
He said, “When I was shooting for Ulajh and I came back, I had less than a week to prepare for something else that I was doing and I kind of struggled in the first seven to eight days of shooting. I didn't have enough time to sort of prepare for that. I am an experienced actor, so the experience also pulls me through but sometimes it just drains you out a little bit. Sometimes your body would be like, ‘Hey bro, slow down’.” He said he boarded the patriotic thriller because he liked his role in it. The film is headlined by Janhvi Kapoor and directed by Sudhanshu Saria of Loev (2015) fame.
“I have to find the part that's been offered to me interesting and that's paramount. Also, I am at that stage where it has to make sense for my career because it should be a project that's good for my career,” he said.
Ulajh also starring Roshan Mathew, Adil Hussain, Rajesh Tailang, Meiyang Chang, Rajendra Gupta, and Jitendra Joshi, released in theatres on August 2.
