What does one do after emerging as a breakout star? Most likely, go on a signing spree. But Sidhant Gupta, who burst on the scene last year with Jubilee, vanished from the spotlight. Now, over one-and-a-half years on, the actor is back on screen as India’s first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in Nikkhil Advani’s period drama, Freedom At Midnight. 

“As an actor, you get to know yourself as you move along, when success and acceptance come in. Why am I doing this work? This has been a life-changing question for me. I asked myself this when no one wanted to work with me, and I ask myself this today as well. When I read the script of Freedom At Midnight, I got my answer,” begins the actor. He is aware that the audience would have expected to see more of him after Jubilee.

But he instead dived deep into the Sony LIV series, which follows the events leading up to India’s partition and independence in 1947. “Nothing else mattered, not the perception of people. I didn’t want to take the safe route. I don’t want to keep doing the same three-film [deal] and back-to-back shifts. I want to stick to my guns,” he says.

That is not to say that Gupta is averse to commercial outings. After Jubilee, the actor read multiple scripts, but stayed true to his pursuit as an artiste. “If the characters are appealing, I might do those [mainstream projects] as well. I’m not hiding behind the character of Jawaharlal Nehru. I’m doing the job that actors sign up to do, which is to become someone else.”

Besides the creative satisfaction that Freedom At Midnight—also starring Chirag Vohra and Rajendra Chawla—offered, Gupta immensely enjoyed being on Advani’s set. He says the creator-director treats his unit like a family.

Recalling an incident from their Patiala shoot, the actor shares, “One day, we had to stall the shoot as the rains weren’t stopping. A day’s cost is enormous in such a huge show. So, usually, you see directors and producers thinking about how to save money. But Nikkhil sir took the entire unit to Chandigarh for a day and threw a bash. When I told him it was commendable, he replied, ‘This will drive the team for the next 15-20 days.’”