Adhyayan Suman doesn’t mince words when he says he has been waiting to feel validated for the last 15 years, and opportunity has knocked on his door at last with Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar. Adhyayan talked to us about the dark phase of his acting career, sharing screen space with his father Shekhar Suman in Heeramandi and how Bhansali’s Netflix series will likely turn the tide for him.

Did getting cast in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Heeramandi feel like a validation for you as an actor?

Adhyayan Suman: Yeah, I’ve been wanting to feel validated for the last 15 years. Mr Bhansali made a phone call to my father and spoke to him for 20 minutes after I did that long one-take scene and he cried. It was heart-touching because you have to understand that I came from a space where being out of work took me to really dark spaces. And just the fact that I bagged the show and I was playing two pivotal parts in it, and the fact that you have the best filmmaker giving you that validation, meant bigger than an Oscar to me.

What was your first interaction with Sanjay Leela Bhansali like?

Adhyayan Suman: It was at the costume trial. He came on set and looked at me and said, ‘Bachcha, I’ll see you tomorrow’. I looked back and asked, ‘Are you talking to me?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I’m talking to you. I’m going to see you tomorrow’. And that’s how I was given the confirmation that I was doing the show.

I got the second role while I was filming for the first role. Just fortunate, man, I guess. I play the younger version of my father’s character.

Tell us something about the two characters you play in Heeramandi.

Adhyayan Suman: The main character that I play is Zoravar Ali Khan, a debauched and self-obsessed nawab whom Richa Chadha’s character falls in love with. He ends up ditching her and marrying a princess because he looks down upon the courtesans of Heeramandi. He has some great lines in the show. The other character I play is the younger version of the character played by my dad – Zulfikar, who’s the head of the nawabs. My dad and I have only one scene in the show for now and it comes at a pivotal point. But just that one scene that I shot with him was surreal. I had Mr Bhansali on one side and my father on the other.

What did you take away from this whole experience of working on Heeramandi?

Adhyayan Suman: As cliche as it sounds, never give up because your dreams will come true. For 15 years when I had no sense of light in the darkness, how many would expect me to be working with Mr Bhansali? So, you’ve just got to believe in yourself and not live in a bubble.

You had only one scene in R. Balki’s Chup (2022). Why did you do that?

Adhyayan Suman: I don’t know if it was a good choice or a bad decision, but if you notice at the beginning of the film, it said, ‘Thank you, special appearance to Amitabh Bachchan and Adhyayan Suman’. I got a call from Shruti Mahajan (casting director) when I was holidaying with my friends. She said, ‘I feel like this is a good opportunity for you because Mr Balki would get to see you. Also, you will be given a special appearance credit in the film.’ I thought, ‘If it’s a special appearance, then why not?’

I wouldn’t do it for everyone. But it was for Mr Balki, and I’m a huge admirer of him. When I did the shot, Mr Balki got up to me and said, ‘Dude, you’re good, man.’ My work hadn’t reached a lot of people. I was trying everything that I could, hoping that I would get picked up by the directors whom I really wanted to work with. Because an actor is nothing without the right opportunity.

While I was leaving after the three-hour shoot, Mr Balki knocked on my car door at the gate and said, ‘I’m going to call you very soon’. I don’t know when I will get the chance to work with him but the fact that he reassured me, saying, ‘I don’t want to give you anything small. I want to give you a great role’, at least he got to see my potential. And someday that potential will turn into the right opportunity for me. I know that.

Look, I don’t have big people backing me. My father doesn’t call up the producers. Even if he did, they won’t give me a film. That’s just how the cookie crumbles here. I’m doing whatever it takes to create opportunities for myself.

Very few filmmakers in the mainstream make brave casting choices…

Adhyayan Suman: For directors like Mr Bhansali or Mr Balki, it’s not about how big a star you are. It is about whether you fit a character or not. These directors are so observant that they will see a side of you that even you can’t see. You can’t see the madness in you but they can.

It’s popularity over talent and 90 per cent of the industry functions like this. Can you imagine me going to casting agencies and having conversations with them and them saying, ‘You have only 450K followers, not 20 million, so I’m not casting you’? You’re considering somebody else over an actor because you feel they have more followers than him.

In Heeramandi, you’re paired with Richa Chadha. What kind of interactions did you have with her during the shoot?

Adhyayan Suman: Richa sent me a voice note after the first day of the shoot. She said, ‘People gave me a very wrong perception of you. That you are a star kid, spoilt; you wouldn’t want to work or you’ll misbehave. But you’re the complete opposite. I am angry with myself that I believed that version of you. I should have never judged you first hand.’ For me, that is beautiful because it comes from a super performer like Richa Chadha. She’s very oblivious to the fact that she’s a superb actress.

What are your expectations from Heeramandi?

Adhyayan Suman: I’m very clear about one thing — Heeramandi will not make me a superstar but my role in it has the potential to validate me as a talent. I think people from 192 countries are going to watch me. That’s a massive audience. From whatever I have learned as an actor, sometimes only one scene is enough to change your life. And I feel I have that one scene in the show, for which Mr Bhansali called my father. It’s in the second episode.

Did you try to figure out why things didn’t work out for you after a promising start to your film career?

Adhyayan Suman: Those 15 years when I sat at home were very painful. Seeing my peers or friends walk past me, race ahead of me, and the fact that I felt I was left behind, was painful. I was sad for myself. I started with a massively successful film, Raaz: The Mystery Continues, hitting Rs 60 crore at the box office in 2009. Why am I sitting at home?

I did a film called Jashnn (2009) which was critically acclaimed, but why am I sitting at home? I have great songs under my belt as an actor – Soniyo, Aaya Re, Nazrein Karam, O Jaana, Main Dhoondne Ko Zamaane Mein Nikla – but why am I sitting at home? I tried to find a reason. I tried to reason with myself. Then I had to ask a few people. I could find a thousand faults, a thousand reasons why I stayed at home. But who the hell cares, dude? It’s the past, and now I want to live this moment. It looks quite bright to me.

What are your upcoming projects?

Adhyayan Suman: I’ve shot for two films. I have a schedule left for a film called Love Story of ’90s. It’s about a boy who’s stuck in the ’90s in terms of his ideology of love, and how his bubble is broken when he falls in love with a girl in college. It’s his journey of coming of age. Beautiful love story that I’m finally working on and carrying the entire film on my shoulders again.

I play a dark antagonist in a film called Wahamm, which is a massive mad thriller with Vijay Raaz, and a phenomenal actress named Ria Nalavade, who’s done a couple of shows for Netflix.

I have nine songs coming out this year as singles. I have my first EP album coming out. I’m producing a massive biopic this year with one of the leading production houses and hopefully debuting as a director with my film Ae Ajnabi. It’s a coming-of-age film about two strangers who meet on a flight. I’m writing that currently. I’m going to be acting in that too. I don’t want to stop.

It is my journey from my picture being big on the poster to coming down to being small to me now hoping to work harder to make that picture on the poster big again. With Heeramandi, I feel my journey begins again.