Varunn: Dream role

Jamshedpur, July 10: After Madhavan, there?s another actor from the steel city determined to make his presence felt in tinsel town.

Meet Loyola alumnus Varunn Kashyap, who has rubbed shoulders with screen idols Sunjay Dutt, Abhishek Bachchan and Suniel Shetty in Anubhav Sinha?s multi-starrer Dus.

The 26-year-old has played an assistant commissioner of police of the anti-terrorist cell, Ananth Raghavan, in the slick thriller. Dus is his first film and the youth dreams of making it really big in filmdom.

Speaking to The Telegraph from Mumbai, Varunn said: ?I have more projects coming up. But I would like to keep them under wraps for the time being.?

Varunn, son of K.M. Sharma, former chief of finance and accounts, Tata Pigments, went to Symbiosis College, Pune after completing his tenth from Loyola. It was in Pune where he was told that there was ?something special about his face and he should try his luck in movies?. ?I got the shock of my life. But it changed my life forever,? Varunn said.

His first challenge was his weight. ?I not only lost 35 kg but also gave up a lot of things I loved,? he recalled.

The starry-eyed youth moved to Mumbai in 2003 and enrolled in Kishore Namit Kapoor?s acting studio. ?Since I was one of the best students there, I grew in confidence and was ready for bigger things,? he said, adding that he was selected for Dus after an audition.

Shedding light on life in Mumbai, Varunn said, ?My routine includes dropping in at the offices of film producers and directors and waiting for them to call me. Sometimes things clicks and sometimes they don?t.?

The actor, who stays in Lokhandwala and likes visiting Haji Ali, said he was initially interested in making a career in computers and acting was not on his agenda. ?My sister Shalini is a big dreamer. It was she who pushed me into acting,? he said. On his role in Dus, Varunn said though it was not a lengthy one, the experience of acting with the likes of Dutt and Bachchan Jr was something to cherish.