Actress Sayani Gupta has heaped praise on her Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) senior Jaideep Ahlawat in a heartfelt note on Instagram, mentioning that he continues to be a “calm, warm, loving senior who one can turn to”.
“The first senior we met on campus when we reached for the selection workshop at @ftiiofficial. Calm, reassuring, solid voice and presence. He made us comfortable.. a group of 168 kids who all were nervous & raring to give their best vying for the 21 seats in the acting batch of 2008,” the 39-year-old actress wrote alongside pictures with Jaideep from a recent event.
The Four More Shots Please! actress said that she and her batchmates always knew that Jaideep is a “fantastic actor”. She added, “What one has observed over the years is that he not only got better at his craft quietly, unassumingly but also one of the very few people who took success with grace, humility and stayed the rock solid human that he always was.”
Sayani further said that one of her friends recently told her that Jaideep is one of the best actors in India after watching Paatal Lok. “Well, he is sublime. But what we sometimes forget as actors is that the actor is always grounded in the human they are and to see his journey being so wholesome and so secure.. it gives us immense joy & reassurance that you can quietly keep doing the good work without making a lot of noise,” she wrote, adding that the work speaks for itself.
The pictures shared by Sayani also feature Vijay Varma, who was also her senior at FTII. “Bhai kuch zyada hi talent tha inke batch mein,” she concluded her note.
Jaideep has been earning plaudits for his portrayal of Inspector Hathi Ram Chaudhary in Prime Video’s Paatal Lok Season 2, which delves into the bloody murder of Jonathan Thom, a high-profile businessman-politician from Nagaland. The new season premiered on the streamer on January 17.
