Exclusive! Radhika Madan: I realised at a very young age that people want to feed their own insecurities to you – Times of India

You’ve worked in a lot of films and portrayed different characters. How difficult and interesting has it been for you?

My high is actually living different lives. I’m just grateful that I got the opportunity to play really different characters till now. I hope I continue to do the same. As a person, I just get bored living the same life. I think that’s the sole reason that I became an actor. Because I don’t like living Radhika’s life, 24*7. So, it has been really satisfying and exciting yet very challenging. So I hope I keep offering the audience, a different shade every time.

You had revealed that you had given an audition for Karan Johar’s ‘Student Of The Year’ and didn’t get selected, but that didn’t stop you from looking out for other roles…
The reason I didn’t get ‘SOTY’ was that I gave the worst audition of my life. Nobody would have liked that audition, I’m damn sure. So that was the worst audition of my life and I take the responsibility for that, I won’t blame anyone for that. I just made a promise to myself while walking out of that office that I would never freak out over any project. I just want to enjoy those two minutes, be as honest as possible, have as much fun as possible. In those two minutes, I will live that character, even if I don’t get that project. And after two weeks, I got the audition of ‘Patakha’ and I knew that Vishal (Bhardwaj) sir was making it. I kept telling myself that, ‘just live that life for two minutes’. That has been my mantra for every audition. It has worked really well for ‘Patakha’ and ‘Angrezi Medium’, and even the auditions that I give till now. So, that setback was really important, for me to realise this thing.

You recently said that you’ve been asked to do surgery to look pretty on screen. How did you react when you were asked to do it?

I realised at a very young age that people want to feed their own insecurities to you. It’s up to you, how you see the world and how you see yourself. That’s really important. You also put insecurities in people because you want to stay a notch above them and be like, ‘Oh, I’m in a position to tell you that you’re not pretty’. But not really, I’m the one who’s in the position to tell myself that I’m pretty or not. I don’t seek any external validation. So, I was like, ‘My work will speak for me’ and I consider myself really pretty, and that’s all that matters. It doesn’t matter what shape and size I am in, and how my nose looks, how my jaw looks. I was like, ‘Ugh! This isn’t true,’ and moved on.

Are you in love with someone?

Not right now. But, I’m in love with my life. I’m in love with everything I’m doing right now. I was in a relationship, a really long one. But, we recently broke up and that’s fine. Right now, I’m really enjoying my life and I think it’s really important for you to fill yourself up and then offer it to somebody else, rather than just taking from each other. So if my cup is full and the other person’s cup is full, only then we can be in a relationship.

What, according to you, keeps a relationship healthy?

I need to be okay with who I am. I need to be happy with my own self. Only then, I will be able to offer something to the other person and I will be able to share my own happiness with the other person. It’s not the other way round… it is not like I’ll meet a person and that person will complete me. You need to be complete in yourself and the other person needs to be complete in themselves. Only then, it will be a healthy relationship and you’ll just share that overflowing of love and happiness.

Are you open to dating an actor?

Of course, everybody at the end of the day, are people, no matter what profession you’re in. I’m also an actor. So I wouldn’t want to demean any actor by saying, ‘Oh, I don’t want to be in a relationship with an actor’.

Who inspires you the most in Bollywood?

A lot of people actually, Vidya (Balan), even Kangana (Ranaut), Alia (Bhatt). They’ve paved the paths for all young actresses and they’re really inspiring. When I watch their films, I go like, ‘I want to do that’. I hope someday I’ll be able to offer the same to the audience.

How do you deal with criticism when your films don’t do well at the box office or on OTT?

See, my win is in the process. My high is in the process. If I’ve played a character with utmost honesty and given my 200%, my job is done. After that whatever happens, it is okay. I don’t really get attached to the result of it. For me, it is the journey and not the destination. So, if people like it, cherry on the cake, and if they don’t like it, it is up to them, it is fine. Everybody has their freedom of speech and I was okay with it because I just wanted to live the character and I lived it. And that is where my win is.

What upcoming projects are you working on?

The next project that I can talk about is ‘Shiddat’, from the makers of ‘Angrezi Medium’. I just finished the shoot for it. I’m really excited to share it with the audience. I hope they get to see a different shade of me and they like it. There are other projects in the pipeline too which I can’t talk about, but I hope the announcements come out really soon.