When Himanshu Malik decided to shift gears from being an actor to a director, he didn’t know that it would turn out to be the biggest battle of his life. Malik, who gained recognition as an actor with the 2001 movie Tum Bin, made his directorial debut with Chitrakut earlier this year. He shares, “I was 21 years old when I started as a model, and then as an actor. I didn’t even know anything about the industry when I started out. I had that typical, what we call ‘pop success’ in Bollywood. But (during the transition), the prejudice was huge.”

Ask him what makes him say that, and he elaborates, “There were people who said, ‘Why are you making the film? What’s the point? Don’t do this.’ They were like, ‘You look good, just lose weight, act more and have a good time’.”

He goes on, “For me to convince people to see Chitrakut was so difficult in the early stages of making the movie. After that, we had a whole team backing it, but the start was rough.”

The 49-year-old, who also appeared in projects such as Jungle (2000), Khwahish (2003) and Rog (2005), says all these years he “kept thinking that filmmaking is something” that he “surely wanted to do”. For his directorial debut, he picked a story based on the journey of change through the lives of five people as they go on a quest to find love and companionship. He is now determined to continue his own journey as a director instead of an actor.

“I just want to make films now. I don’t think I will act anymore. But let’s see what happens,” he ends.