Vicky Kaushal, who was awarded the ‘Brand Endorser of the Year (male)’ at the 11th edition of the IAA Leadership Awards, talked the audience through his journey of becoming an actor and his brand choices.  

In a conversation with Neeraj Roy, managing director and CEO, Hungama Digital Media, Kaushal shared how one industrial visit during his engineering days inspired him to become an actor.

He said, “Until my second year of college if anybody would ask me about my future, I would always say that I would pursue a job in engineering. But when I saw what the future would look like, I knew this couldn’t be me. My journey of being an actor started from that thought of what I don’t want to do in life."

Explaining how one thing led to another, Kaushal said, "At a time when ‘actor koi nahi banta tha, hero launch hote the,’ (there were no actors, only heroes that were launched), I did not have the confidence to tell even myself that I wanted to be an actor. My first thought was that I wanted to pursue happiness. From there my journey started as an assistant director to Anurag Kashyap on Gangs of Wasseypur. That set my learning and the foundation right in terms of the kind of actors I want to interact with. Your start and the foundation should be right. I think my learning steps were at the right place with the right people, and then one thing led to the other.”

Kaushal threw light on his motto behind choosing a brand to partner with.

He asserted, “There is a lot of chatter about image in this industry and how you would be perceived by the audience. While growing up and coming into this industry, my parents always said that you need to have the right intention and work hard. I think that’s where I focus on and whenever I am taking up a brand or a brand reaches out, the only thing I am looking for is ‘neeyat saaf honi chaiye,’ (the intention should be right).”

He mentioned that when partnering up with any brand, the focus for both him and the brand should be on the quality of work and the two can join hands to bring ‘saaf neeyat’ (right intention) to the audience.

Recalling an incident where one of the brand campaigns that he shot for conflicted with a movie that he was doing at that time, Kaushal noted, “At one point, there was a surrogate brand of a gutka company and I said yes to them. But at that time, I had just finished shooting my film called Sardar Udham, which is based on our revolutionary Shree Sardar Udham Singh ji. Then, just a week before shooting the campaign with them, the thought came that in a few months, this film is going to come out and I'm going to be asking the audience to believe that I am Shaheed Sardar Udham Singh. I can not promote anything that is against their beliefs, so I have to choose one. I can either ask them to believe that I believe in the values of Shaheed Sardar Udham Singh Ji or I can do something which that community would not approve of. That's when I reached out to the brand and I said that I won't be able to do it because of this reason. They were really sweet to understand that and completely respected that thought.”

On a concluding note, Kaushal stressed that for any commodity that a brand has, they have every right to market it and his goal is to make any brand that he is associated with, grow with him.