Actor Jitin Gulati, who rose to fame with MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, took a major career gamble when he gave up the security of a well-paying job at a foreign bank to pursue acting. Years later, the actor has several projects in the pipeline, including Mahakali with Akshaye Khanna and Fauzi with Prabhas.
In an exclusive conversation with NDTV, Jitin opened up about his journey from working as an Associate Vice President at a foreign bank to pursuing acting full-time. He also recalled earning just Rs 3,500 for his first television commercial and spoke candidly about the struggles and rejections he faced after choosing a career in showbiz.
Jitin Gulati On Choosing Roles For Money
When asked whether he would ever accept a project that did not particularly appeal to him simply because it paid well, Jitin said that money could never be the primary factor when it came to acting.
He said, “As much as I would like to work for money and give precedence to it, it doesn’t work with me, I know that. Having worked here for long, I don’t think I can work purely for money. I can do other things for money. I was a banker before, so I did a lot of other consultancy work for money. I can do ads for money. I can do events and hosting for money. I do a lot of that for money, but when it comes to acting and facing the camera, if my heart is not in it, then it’d show on camera, so it’s best not to do it for money.”
“Of course, you want money for the effort that you’ve put in, for the experience you have. I will not accept lesser money for the kind of experience I bring in or the kind of work that is involved in the film. But money will not be the first factor for sure,” he added.
From A Foreign Bank To Acting
Looking back at how far he has come, Jitin said he never wants to reach a point where he feels he has accomplished everything he set out to achieve. What matters more to him is that he took a chance on himself when he was 29 and walked away from a stable banking career to pursue his passion.
“If I feel like I’ve accomplished, then what is there for me to do? I hope I never feel like that, that I’ve accomplished anything. I’m just happy that I took a chance in my life, and I don’t regret that thing at all. I think that’s one thing that I’m, of course, all of us are working on, but I’m just very happy that I took a chance, and I took a punt on me at the age of 29.”
He continued, “I quit my bank job. I was working in a foreign bank for close to nine years, and I quit that to pursue acting. I was training to be an actor while I was in the bank, but I came to Bombay with my job only, and I quit that, and I started modelling, and then got into full-time acting.”
The transition, however, was far from smooth. Jitin described his career as a slow and sometimes frustrating journey, albeit one in which he believes he has consistently moved forward.
“Since then, I think it’s been a bumpy ride. It’s been a very chequered career. I’ve had great days, and I have had very bad days, but the good thing is that the only consistent thing that has happened in my career, which I’m very pleased about, is that I’ve always moved ahead. Very slowly, but very steadily, I’ve moved ahead.”
He added, “It’s been a very slow journey for me and very frustrating also many a time, but as I said, the good thing is that I’ve moved ahead. And I’m far away from what I want to accomplish and the kind of parts I want to do, but I always feel that I am in progress and I’m building towards something bigger, and I think that’s a great feeling.”
He Earned Rs 3,500 For His First Ad
Before entering the entertainment industry full-time, Jitin had risen to the position of Associate Vice President at a foreign bank. While he chose not to reveal his salary at the time, he acknowledged that he had been earning well.
“I was an Associate Vice President when I resigned from the bank, so you can imagine the salary that you mostly get when you are an AVP in a bank. It was quite good.”
His first pay cheque from a television commercial, meanwhile, was a stark contrast to his banking career. Jitin revealed that he received Rs 3,500 for the commercial. To make the experience even more memorable, only his shoulder eventually made it into the ad.
Recalling his first-ever shoot, he said, “The first job that I got, the first TV commercial I got, where I was standing behind the main lead girl, only my shoulder is visible in that ad, although I felt that I was the main star that day because that was my first-ever shoot. But only my shoulder is visible in that ad. I got paid 3,500 rupees for that.”
Jitin explained that he was still employed at the bank when he shot the advert. Despite having theatre experience and attending several auditions, he had never previously been on a professional set.
“For my first ad ever. For the first time, that’s the first day I entered a set ever, because I had worked in theatre, but I had never been on a set. I’d auditioned a lot, but I’d never been on a set. I’d never worked as an AD or something. I was still working in the bank when I did my first ad.”
He admitted that he had initially believed he had landed a substantial role in the commercial because he had auditioned with dialogues.
“So that was a very special day for me, but yeah, I thought that I had a good part in the ad because they had auditioned me with dialogues and everything, but I was ultimately just standing behind the main lead girl. And I really felt I’d become a star that day, but only my shoulder was visible.”
Far from blaming the makers, Jitin laughed about his own lack of awareness at the time.
“It was not their fault. It was in my head. I thought, ‘Ah, I have a big part.’ It was not their fault at all. I mean, on the set I got to know that there were four or five guys standing behind the main lead girl, and I should have checked before. And I had no, honestly, Kusumika, I had no idea, you know, about these things.”
The experience eventually taught him to ask the right questions when auditioning for projects.
“Then, when I started auditioning, I came to know that, okay, I should also check if they’re using me as an actor in the background or as somebody who has lines and stuff. And then, that’s how I learnt. But yeah, that day I was very happy, by the way. I mean, that day was the happiest day for me because I was on a set, finally, at the age of 30. But yeah, in the ad, only my shoulder was visible, and acting full on.”
How Jitin Gulati Deals With Rejection
Jitin’s journey has also involved years of auditions, rejection, and uncertainty. For him, surviving those ups and downs comes down to knowing why he chose acting in the first place.
“I think the reason why I came to the industry was very clear in my head. I was not chasing fame per se, or I was not chasing some sort of an idea that this is how my career should be, or this is what people should look at me like. The intent was very clear. I’ve always been on stage since my childhood, and I knew that that gives me the most joy.”
Interestingly, he does not look back at his banking career with resentment. He said he was happy with his job and colleagues, but there was always a feeling that he belonged somewhere else.
“Many a time you feel in your life that you are here, but you should be somewhere else. My bank job was great. I mean, I could be there for like eight or nine years also because I was happy there, you know, and the people that I was working with were good. But I always felt that I should be, I have to be somewhere else. I never felt at peace, you know?”
It was being on a set or in front of the camera that eventually gave him that sense of fulfilment.
“And you feel that, you know, when you’re at the wrong place for yourself, you feel that you’ve got to be somewhere else. A set or a place in front of the camera is where I feel the happiest, where I feel wholesome. I think once you have that feeling, then you know that you’re here for the right reason. So first, if you know you are here for the right reason and this is what you enjoy and love, I think half the battle is won there.”
‘My Family Stood With Me Through Thick And Thin’
Jitin also credited his family with giving him the support he needed to continue pursuing acting through difficult periods.
“Of course, it’s a long process, and, you know, our careers are made over, like, it’s been what, 18 years for me now, close to 18 years for me. In that case, I think the support of your loved ones is very, very important. Your family needs to stand with you through thick and thin, and I’m very lucky in that aspect.”
Coming from a middle-class family made his decision to give up a lucrative banking career even more significant, he said.
“My parents and my sisters have been, you know, an absolute support for me since the beginning, since the time I told them that I’m leaving my bank job and I’m going to do this. It’s quite a tough one because I come from a middle-class family. My father was in the Navy, my mother was a teacher, both are retired now, and I was in a foreign bank. I was earning pretty well.”
His family, he added, never asked him to abandon acting, even during difficult periods.
“So that kind of support, and in 18 years I’ve never seen them tell me to do something else. You know, that’s another big thing. People around you can ask you to reconsider your decisions, but I’ve never been told that, because I was also very clear that there’s nothing else that I want to do. I will do other things along with this, but I will never leave this, touch wood.”
‘You Need Unshakeable, Unbreakable Faith’
Rejection, according to Jitin, is inevitable for actors. What keeps him going is a deep attachment to the craft, one that repeatedly pulls him back even after professional heartbreak.
“I think that support is very important. And I believe that if you, I mean, you know, what is love? How do we love something? If you love something, you keep on coming back to that, yeah? Right? You can’t leave it.”
He continued, “So, of course, there’s rejection, there is heartbreak, and a lot of it in our, I mean, because you are an actor and you audition a lot, there are heartbreaks every day. But the heartbreak lasts for two or three days, maybe a week, and then you see some nice film from the ’90s which you grew up on and you loved, and you thought that, ‘Okay, I want to work like that,’ and then you’re back to the grind.”
For Jitin, the love for acting has to be strong enough to withstand professional disappointments.
“So I think the love keeps on, you know, letting you move forward, and that’s very important, I feel. You need to have, and when I say love, not the love that is, you know, like a mother-to-a-kid love, which will never stop whatever happens. Not a love that can break up.”
“A love could be a romantic love, could be a motherly love or a fatherly love, but a love that sustains everything, that basically does not let anything hamper it. If you have that kind of a love for something, and you need that in our career, you need that. You can’t be building it on just something that is very, very breakable. You need unshakeable, unbreakable faith and love for this work. Only then can you survive it,” concluded Jitin.
