#AgainstAllOdds! Saurabh Sachdeva: I am dyslexic; I was bullied a lot in school because of my academics

It’s an undeniable fact that there’s a lot of hard work and dedication required to ace in the field of acting. One must be truly immersed in his/her craft in order to make it look real and believable. In an exclusive chat with ETimes, acting coach, filmmaker as well as an actor

Saurabh Sachdeva

opened up about the biggest reasons for taking acting as a career and contributing in the industry by being a coach. He also spoke about being bullied in school, his struggles with dyslexia and walked us down the memory lane when Richa Chadha, Varun Dhawan, Harshvardhan Rane and Rana Daggubati were his students. Apart from them, Frieda Pinto, Jacqueline Fernandez, Vaani Kapoor, Arjun Kapoor, among many others have been trained by him. He has been teaching since 19 years. He has also taken workshops for many Bollywood films and has directed and acted in a number of plays in Delhi and Mumbai. Saurabh Sachdeva will soon be seen in Bejoy Nambiar’s ‘

Taish

’ sharing screen space with Pulkit Samrat, Jim Sarbh, Kriti Kharbanda,

Sanjeeda Sheikh

, and Harshvardhan Rane. Here are excerpts from his chat with ETimes.



Dealing with dyslexia
Saurabh Sachdeva has been a man who has faced a lot of hardships during his childhood. He has been dyslexic, and had a lot of difficulty in reading. He was often humiliated in school. He shared that he used to mix up words, get confused over spellings, and had difficulty identifying letters of the same pattern. “I was bullied because of my education. When my teacher used to ask me to read the book, ‘mere liye bahut buri halat hoti thi’, my mother used to come every Saturday to take my notes from a bright kid. ‘Yeh baat Mujhe bahut late pata laga, jo symptoms hain woh dyslexia ke hain’. I used to jumble up words having similar patterns. Now, I am improving my reading skills. I keep forgetting a lot of things though. I read a lot of books.” He also revealed that it requires a lot of practice, and has been working on it sincerely.

Inspiration for taking up acting
The ‘Manmarziyaan’ actor also revealed that it was his ex-girlfriend who inspired him to act. “When she was about to break up with me, I asked her not to leave me. I’ll become a bigshot really soon. I tried handicraft exports, which didn’t work. I had this constant thing playing in my mind, ‘jaldi se bada ho jaana hain’ then I thought of acting, but mujhe acting ka koi shauq nahi tha. My parents weren’t giving me money, so then I joined Barry John, and that also happened by chance. Because I am dyslexic, ‘meri education bahut achhi nahi thi’.

“Barry Sir made me do a self portrait, and I’ve always loved to paint..while making the self portrait I realised this is the place I want to be. And I don’t want to be famous, I want to have my expression back, so the child has lost its expression, I wanted it back. And that was my journey” Saurabh commented. Saurabh Sachdeva has been teaching since 19 years.“I’ve been teaching everyday. And I always look forward to give students expression, because that connects to my inner child who lost his expression”

“I remember in 2017, I started my school. I came out of Barry John acting studio and I wanted to make my own films, and that was my aim. ‘Fir mere parents ne bola, bhai roti haha se khaoge ??..Maine bola kuch classes karwaunga, phir jo paise aayenge, usse likhunga aur film banayunga.”

Saurabh’s definition of an actor

“Acting is living truthfully in the imaginary circumstances”. It’s being in the moment. Being totally present in the moment. Saurabh Sachdeva shared, there are three types of doing we work on : 1) physical doing ; 2) vocal doing ; 3) inner doing”. He also shared that he loves to live his life the similar way- being totally aware of my surroundings. “It really makes me happy, and nourishes me at the moment, makes me enjoy the life”.

Seeing a glimpse of you in the trailer has certainly raised expectations from the film, so how does that make you feel ?

“It really makes me feel very good. I am also waiting to see how it has come up. The editors have also been talking all good about my character and performance. So I am really looking forward because I worked on it very hard, and moreover it was something new I wanted to know. I wanted to create a different image of this character. Bijoy gave me a lot of freedom to experiment and enhance my character, that gave me immense power to be that actor who wants to explore.”

Co- stars seeking validation

Saurabh got all candid about how his students and co-stars keep looking for validation after every shot. “From the last few projects, I’ve always had my students working with me for the films. And there have been times, I am sharing a particular screen space with them, as they have a scene with me. It’s very important for me as an actor that when I am acting, I switch off my teacher’s mind and this is very difficult..This has come from many years of practice ki jab main acting karu toh mere saamne, jo mera student hain, who mera co-actor hain, because there’s this critic mind and teacher mind continuously playing inside my head, and then I won’t be able to connect with them at the moment.

Any fond memories from classes
When asked about the fond memories from classes, the actor shared a story about a little girl, who soon emerged to be a great actress, after she opened up about being sexually harassed. He emphasises on the fact that, sharing is very empowering to make one’s mind free of trouble while enacting a certain scene.

“I was training this boy from street for a film ‘Bits and Pieces’ which would have been starring Rahul Bose, Nandita Das and Dia Mirza. I had just shifted to Bombay, and the producers of the film asked me to assist him, for that they needed a kid for portraying Nandita’s son… the film never took off but after that the boy did a short film, and then with that role he went to Oscars”

Biggest challenge in the career

Saurabh also shared that his biggest challenge so far has been not being well physically. ‘Frankly, I’ve never faced any sort of challenges during work. I’ve never struggled and I’ve always been enjoying my work from the day I joined. So yeah, I really don’t have stories about my struggle. I loved my work and I kept doing it.”

Favourite Students

He also recollected his days when Richa Chadha, Harshvardhan Rane, Rana Daggubati and Varun Dhawan used to be his students. “Richa was my favourite.Varun was my favourite in class. Because he was so active. Harsh was also my favourite. Rana was always controlling the class, always taking care of everyone like a big brother”

“Richa has really done well for herself. When she came, usko lagta tha ki kar paungi ki nahi kar paungi. She was very confident as a woman. In class also, very bright and educated. Her talking tone was very sharp. She always used to wonder Bahar se aaye, Kaise bann jayenge. She eventually surprised all of us. Varun was very active, dusre ka scene hota tha, tab bhi apna karta tha.

What do you associate acting with ?
I think, now acting has become like my lifestyle. I teach for almost 10 hours now, and then do my work as an actor. He also opened up about one of his Russian teachers, who used to create acting exercises from any thing. I think that quality has evolved inside me also.

He also shared, “I never dreamt or thought of acting or being an acting teacher to be my dream job. And I am a seeker and a very curious human being. So if something opens up in the field, I am ready to experiment more.”

One thing you really want people to remember you with

That I created some education, and I’ve helped them in uplifting their personality.

Any message for aspiring actors

On a closing note, Saurabh made a strong statement for aspiring actors. “If you want to get into it, be the best. Everyday do your work, don’t sit ; do not procrastinate, keep working, keep doing, that’s only going to help you. It’s not about how educated you are, you ought to be more cultured. Engage yourself in literature, poetry, painting and travel as much as you can. Enjoy that. And everyday be on your job. Do not wait for inspiration and motivation.”

Saurabh Sachdeva will next be seen in ‘Gwalior’ sharing screen space with Sanjay Mishra, and Neena Gupta.