Two decades across Hindi, Telugu and Kannada cinema have left Gulshan Devaiah with a rare position in the Hindi film conversation: he is comfortable saying he does not have it figured out. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter India ahead of Little Thomas, the actor called the industry’s performance of certainty a “facade” and said success itself often runs on ego.
Devaiah’s breakthrough came with Bejoy Nambiar’s Shaitan (2011), where his reckless Karan “KC” Chaudhary made him a recognisable face. But he says the attention did not feel like a clear win. “I didn’t know what to do with the attention. I was really uncomfortable back then,” he said. He describes an early public self that had not formed opinions and did not know how to behave at parties or in interviews.
The validation trap
Devaiah’s larger point is that the hunger for approval is ordinary, not exceptional. “It’s very human to want people to desperately like you,” he said. He argues that in the movie business, where more visibility means more validation, this need becomes harder to manage. He admits he saw his own ego early and did not know how to control it. Learning to let go of the result, he said, is “very liberating,” even though it also dulls the excitement of hearing what people think.
He does not claim immunity from wanting to be liked. He says it is present in everyone, and that he has seen actors disappointed and depressed because they want stardom and do not get it. “They’re all beautiful-looking people, but deep inside, a lot of them are miserable,” he observed. Treating that as a constant battle has shaped what he chooses to ignore.
Process over results
His working answer is simple, he says, even if it took time to reach:
- Care about the process, not the result. Enjoying the work creates better work.
- Accept that praise and criticism will always exist. Take what is useful and leave the rest.
- Treat certainty as a signal, not proof. “If anybody says they know everything, or behaves as though they do, it’s a facade,” he said.
That framing matters for an audience that follows Hindi cinema closely, because it explains a particular kind of actor: the credible performer who does not chase stardom’s loudest postures and who stays employed across languages. Devaiah recently made his Telugu debut in Samantha Ruth Prabhu’s Maa Inti Bangaram, and his next Hindi release, Little Thomas, is directed by Kaushal Oza and backed by Anurag Kashyap.
What this tells us
The interview is a useful reminder that much of what the industry sells is emotional confidence, not knowledge. Devaiah’s comments do not announce a project or a number; they offer a frame for reading the next wave of interviews, launch events and social media personas. When an actor claims to know exactly what will work, his phrasing suggests asking whether that is experience or ego.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter India
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