Lived in slum, used public toilet to get Company role: Vivek
Actor Vivek Oberoi has revealed that he lived in slums and used public toilets to get a role in the 2002 film 'Company' as director Ram Gopal Varma found him too good-looking for the part. He added, "When I finally met him, I...kept my legs on his desk, and said, 'Ey yeh thobda kya dekh raha hai'. That convinced him."
#NotAllStarKids, the hashtag would read, if social media got wind of what Vivek Oberoi had to go through to bag the now-iconic role of Chandu in Ram Gopal Varma's 2002 film Company and made the story viral. Unlike the popular belief that industry kids get it easy, turns out it was not easy for Vivek Oberoi to convince RGV that he could pull off the character of Chandu.Company, which completed 15 years this week, is one of Bollywood's most iconic gangster films of all time. Written by Jaideep Sahni (who later went on to write Chak De! India) and directed by Ram Gopal Varma, Company was a fictional retelling of the bloody, real-life rivalry between crime bosses, Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Rajan.Fifteen years ago, Vivek Oberoi made his Bollywood debut with Company. Unlike conventional industry-kid debut vehicles which happen to be romantic films, Vivek Oberoi opted for a gritty, gangster film which was a risky career choice. But the film wowed critics and audiences alike and the rest is history.Speaking about how he got the role, Vivek Oberoi spoke to Hindustan Times and said, "My father was planning to launch me in an Abbas Mustan film. But I always wanted to become an actor on my own, so I told him that I would like to go through my struggle. So I went to RGV sir's office, and told him to give me an audition for the role of Chandu. He did not know (then) that I was Suresh Oberoi's son. I told him my name was Vivek Anand. He told me I look too good for the role, and he wanted to cast someone who looked like a gangster from the slums."Then, Vivek apparently asked for fifteen days from Ram Gopal Varma. He began staying in slums, sleeping on floors with mice roaming about, using public toilets and so on. Slowly, he began to look the part..."On the day, I was supposed to meet him, I took out some mud from a plant at his office and applied it on my face. I walked into his room, with a beedi in my mouth - I sat on the chair and kept my legs on his desk, and said, ' Ey yeh thobda kya dekh raha hai'. That convinced him," Vivek said.Vivek Oberoi also did a lot of stunts in the film despite acting in a movie for the first time."I wanted to do everything, and I loved doing all the stunts. There was a sequence, in which I had to run for my life, jumping from one building to another in the bylanes of Kenya. For a steep jump, RGV had asked the stuntman to do it, and after he had finished the shot, RGV left. I, then persuaded the stunt director to shoot the same scene with me," Vivek said.