Varun Dhawan: I had done so many comedies, I reached a point where I couldn't smile anymore

‘If someone told me to smile, main maar deta ussko’ – is how Varun Dhawan describes his state of mind after his continuous comedic streak on screen. He tells us how he’s ready to surprise his audience now.
As soon as the interview’s over, Varun Dhawan does a flawless impression of the kind of people he met in west Delhi during his month-long shoot for 'October' (there was a particularly bullish lady who led him away by the hand to take a picture with her son), and makes you think he’d be quite good as a stand-up comic.That is the space he has come to inhabit on screen as well. But Varun, so tired of smiling that his next, Shoojit Sircar’s 'October', came “like Oxygen”, strongly objects to being seen as ‘predictable’. He says he has a lot of surprises to throw at his audience, starting with his upcoming film.
Shoojit Sircar’s earlier films ('Vicky Donor', 'Piku', 'Pink') have gone deep into the different niches of Delhi. How was it seeing Delhi through his eyes?
You know, my dad is from Delhi, I have a lot of family here. So I’ve seen a side of Delhi... the winters, we’d go to my dadi’s house in Lajpat Nagar, my masi’s house. Toh mujhe Dilli ke baare mein pata hai, idhar-udhar ghooma hoon main.
But hum log pohnche and seedha went to Dwarka from the airport. I’ve never been to Dwarka, and then I lived in Dwarka for 30 days, in that hotel, where I played a trainee. Every day I would get up, serve breakfast at 7am. The first thing I did was learn how to hold that tray right. A lot of foreigners who came to stay in the hotel – Shoojit sir mereko baahar bhejte thay jab unki bus aati thi, and I would greet them, ‘Namaste, kaise ho aap’.
I would carry their bags, drop them till their rooms, they would say, ‘Can I get a coffee, I’m very tired’, I’d come down and give the order for the coffee. For 30 days, I was always in that waiter ka uniform, so a lot of these guests thought I was an actual waiter. Literally, by name, they’d say, ‘hey, how are you?’, ‘that sweet boy’, or whatever. They’d share a lot of stories, one lady from Switzerland spoke about her granddaughter to me a lot. Woh interesting hota tha. I’d never thought Dilli aisi bhi hogi... During that month of October-November, it was also the time of the smog, I saw different weather, I saw different PEOPLE in Dwarka, log bahut alag thay in that part of Delhi, which I didn’t know.

Which Delhi were you familiar with from your childhood visits?
Aurangzeb Road, Lajpat Nagar, thoda bahut Khan Market mein I’ve gone, Nirula’s, Big Chill...
And what’s the new Delhi that you discovered?
Dwarka. Patparganj! Main Dwarka hi hai, I really spent time there. I rode a bike there on the highway, woh bada scary hota hai Dilli mein at 4am, because all the trucks are out, and they are fast. And I had Hanuman Mandir ki kachori... Proper launda hoon Dilli ka main (in the film). Subah uthta hoon main, parathe khata hoon, aloo chaat khata hoon, aa jata hoon kaam par. Daant khata hoon, bura nahi lagta muhje. Dheet hoon main, dheet.
Shoojit has said that people will see a “new Varun” in this film. From being described as the Energiser Bunny, to now, where the trailers have you showing so much restraint in your performance, what’s that transition been like?
That was difficult. I think Shoojit Sircar has that calming effect on you. There was a lot of meditation involved, I couldn’t use a cellphone, I wasn’t allowed to go to the gym. I wasn’t allowed to do anything physical apart from what was happening in the film. I was told to concentrate on my breathing, and basically live in the moment. Not sleep, because he wanted me to look tired throughout the film, and get my energy down. I don’t know why he told me not to sleep, there were some scenes where I needed to look tired, but some days he would just tell me for... I don’t know, maybe it amused him!
Varun Dhawan
This is the only time since Badlapur that you’re stepping away from what has come to be recognised as your ‘zone’. How important is it for you to make the kind of films you have made a name with, and also how important is it for you to step away from that, from time to time?
I always say this, that my career’s just begun. So I don’t like being spoken about as someone who has ‘made it’. I’m fairly new, it’s my tenth film, and I need to do a lot more films before anyone will get to know what I’m all about. I’m someone who’s going to throw a lot of surprises at the audience. I don’t want people to say that ‘Varun hai toh yeh yehi karega’. Whenever someone says that I want to go out there and do something else. ‘Coz that’s how I am. I love cinema, I love watching films in the theatre, so as an audience I just felt that after a while I reached a point where if I’ve done so much... if I’ve done 'Badri', 'Judwa', 'Dishoom', all these films, which made people enjoy, have a good time, a certain type of cinema. But there was this OTHER type of audience that was not seeing my films, and I wanted to do a film for them. Because I like watching those films, films like 'October'. I loved 'Piku', I loved 'Vicky Donor' and 'Pink'. Shoojit Sircar is one of my favourite filmmakers, and it took me ten films to earn the place to walk into his office and tell him, ‘please take me in a film’.
When you say that you don’t want it to get to a point where people say, ‘Varun hai toh yehi karega’, do you think your last couple of films made you get that reaction too often?
Yeah. I got that reaction from a lot of people. In a good way, with a lot of love, that ‘this guy, he feels comfortable, he feels like OUR hero, he’s going to entertain us’, I bring a smile on people’s faces. But I’m a lot more than that, because I became an actor to explore different genres. Somewhere when that comfort was setting in, I needed to break that. I didn’t want it to be like, I walk in, and someone else already knows what I’m going to do.... And doing October was scary, it was very challenging and totally out of my comfort zone. But kya ho gaya tha, because I had done so many comedies, I reached a point in my life where I couldn’t smile anymore. I didn’t feel like it. I just couldn't. If someone said to me, ‘Varun, smile’, main maar deta ussko. And this is the second time this has happened to me in my career, I was burnt out actually. 'October' was like oxygen for me, at that point.

You have said earlier that the audience you are catering to is the one in UP, or Bihar, or in the small towns, while talking about your films like Badrinath Ki Dulhania, Judwa 2, etc.
But let me tell you, even 'October' is that. It’s a very Indian film, it’s about a true incident that happens in Delhi with a boy from a middle-class family. Urban film nahi hai yeh, ki English mein baat kar rahe hain, aur bahut cool life hai inki...
My question is specifically about, after having done mostly mainstream masala films so far, because you want to be catering to your non-multiplex, smaller-town audience, when did you recognise that you could also be doing films that are edgier or not-so-mainstream, but still be catering to your audience in the smaller towns? Because that kind of cinema is also working?
You know, more than ‘realise’ this, this has honestly been a feeling. I feel whenever I am on screen I am catering to my country, to everyone watching. I’m never thinking that I’m only catering to this guy who is from the same status as me, or the same education level... I feel I’m catering to everyone. Because I want to appeal to everyone, I don’t want to do stories for five-six people. But then people will say, ‘Why do you want to do a film like 'October', then?’. But fact is that the filmmaker we’re talking about, his last films have been very successful. He’s a very big filmmaker in that sense, his stories aren’t small.

A British newspaper did an article on your co-star Banita Sandhu (who is of Indian origin, but is a Welsh-born student in London), and it said that she has been cast opposite “the Indian equivalent of Liam Hemsworth”...
I think he’s so tall, ek toh... and I’m not that tall (laughs). It’s fine, we all get compared. I would say I’m the Indian Varun Dhawan. I’m the only one.
Karan Johar has said earlier that he saw right from your childhood that you are an exhibitionist...
I’ve always been an exhibitionist, from Day 1. As a kid, when I was five, six, I was always in my underwear, running around the house. I greeted a lot of people coming to my house in my underwear.
Why did you hate wearing clothes so much?
It was hot! I swear! And I think I realised that at this age I can get away with it. So might as well. Even now, I’m pretty much in my boxers. And this has happened to me a lot, like when people come home to dress me, or if I’m doing some classes for a film, I’m pretty much in my boxers most of the time. And now I’ve just shifted to a house alone, even though I’ve spent just 20 days there.
Do you answer your own door?
I like to.