Adarsh Gourav says he felt insecure when he competed with ‘buff men with great bodies’ at auditions

Adarsh Gourav, the breakout star of the recently released Netflix film The White Tiger, faced several rejections ever since he began his acting career in 2007. He has revealed that he felt intimidated at auditions, where he was surrounded by muscular men.

Before bagging The White Tiger, Adarsh had no work for months. He also talked about wanting to quit the entertainment industry a few years ago.

In a Netflix India Instagram post, Adarsh said that he competed with ‘really big, buff men with great bodies’ at auditions. “I looked at them and thought, 'Wow man, these guys really look like heroes'. I was intimidated because I was a skinny kid and I still am.” However, he chose to focus on his craft. “I realised rejections are a bigger part of an actor’s life than acceptance,” he said.

Adarsh, who made his Bollywood debut with Karan Johar’s My Name Is Khan as a child artiste, was out of work for long periods of time and almost gave up. “There was a time in 2015 when I wanted to quit acting and not do it anymore,” he said. “Even in 2019, before I got The White Tiger, I had no work for months. I was literally trying to make money any way possible,” he continued.

In The White Tiger, Adarsh starred alongside Rajkummar Rao and Priyanka Chopra. He played an ambitious driver for a rich family who rose above his circumstances to become an entrepreneur.

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The Hindustan Times review said, “It’s a star-making performance by newcomer Adarsh Gourav, who not only manages to grab the proverbial bull by the horns, but also reins it in. He’s an Angry Young Man for post-Modi India, much like what Amitabh Bachchan was for the Emergency generation — an embodiment of rage, restlessness and rebellion directed at the establishment.”