Exclusive! Gagan Arora’s story about fake audition is worth listening for every new coming actor

MUMBAI:   College Romance is an Indian, Hindi-language web series created by The Viral Fever and developed by Arunabh Kumar and stars Keshav Sadhna, Apoorva Arora, Manjot Singh, Gagan Arora, and Shreya Mehta. It follows three best friends, Karan, Naira, and Trippy. They live for love, laughs and some lifelong memories while attending college together.

Before his acting debut, Arora worked as an assistant director on Amar Kaushik's 2018 film Stree. He made his acting debut with The Viral Fever's College Romance (2018), for which he received praise from critics and the audience. He subsequently starred in The Viral Fever's series Girls Hostel (2018–2021), Basement Company (2020) and 4 Thieves (2020).

Also read - EXCLUSIVE! Gagan Arora talks about what matters to him as an actor; says, he won’t mind playing a two-minute role in a film

TellyChakkar recently got in touch with the actor and asked him about things he has and hasn’t done in life, and we must say, it’s pretty interesting.

Never have I ever gossiped about my co-star?

Either I tell you the story, or we drink the coffee. I drank the coffee. Let me tell you, this (Apoorva) is the centrepiece. Every information goes here, nothing comes out of it. Everything is stored and contained, and on the day, she decides she wants to mess with somebody, it’ll end badly. I’m looking into the camera and telling; you’ll never ever mess with Apoorva Arora. You might not know her, but she will know something about you.

Never have I ever gate crashed a wedding?

I have. I mean, college times, theatre, boys, at that time we didn’t have money to eat at fancy places. There was a PG where my friends used to live. There was a huge function right opposite to that. We decided that today we will eat good food. The maximum effort that we put was that we wore shirts and still, we were wearing slippers. We entered the function where all of us were being very subtle except for this one friend who later got caught. We were standing on one side, and we ate all that we could in 10-15 minutes, and then ran out, but we could see that some people were dragging him out, and he was apologizing to them continuously.

Never have I ever shoplifted?

I have. In childhood, there used to be Beyblades. I stole one. Went back to get another one for my brother, and that’s when I got caught. Kids at that time used to be so crazy about Beyblades.

Never have I ever been a part of the show and regretted it?

I do regret it.

Never have I ever heard a rumor about myself?

I have. Just Google it right now – Apoorva Arora’s brother. Even though it’s not true, it doesn’t change. And we are not related.

Never have I ever fake complimented someone?

I have, to my bosses. All of my bosses. “Oh, you look amazing!”, “Wow you look so good!”, etc.

Never have I ever been victim of a fake audition or a casting couch?

I would like to talk about it. I was really new, and season 1 had just been a huge success. Post that, I was out of work for about 4 months, and I had no clue what to do because I was told one show will be a big hit, and I’ll be getting work back-to-back, and that my character is getting so much love, but there was no work coming my way. I was waiting, and suddenly I got a call asking if I can come down as they have already shortlisted me, and it was for Jockey waist that used to come. I agreed. At that time, I was fit as well, so they said that I might have to remove my shirt. I agreed as I had no problem. As I entered, he asked his assistant to go out. I found that a little weird, but I thought that it was to make me feel comfortable so that there’s no other person around. So, we started, and he had proper lines of Jockey branding and stuff. I did the lines, and he said now we’ll click a few pictures without your shirt. I said fine and removed my shirt. Then he said let’s do lines without the shirt now. That is when I was like okay. I did a line and he said “No, no, no! I do not like this one. What are you doing now? Do you know acting at all?” I couldn’t understand what changed so suddenly. He then came very close to me and said do it this way and that way, and while saying this he started to touch me and then hand started to keep going lower and lower and lower. Me being from Delhi, my Delhi popped out, and I slapped him really tightly. He looked at me and said that I’ll never be able to get work. I feel really bad for the person. In Aaram Nagar you can book an office for 10,000 rupees per day. He said I’ll make sure that you don’t get work and I told him that I don’t even want to do such work and if you can stop my talent then I have no talent. So, after I walked out of that place, I couldn’t feel anything for a very long time. Since then, I always cross checked the legitimacy of the casting director. This is something that every aspiring actor who is new to Mumbai should definitely do. Before you ever go for it, do check out the person on Google or IMDB, and if that person doesn’t seem to be legit, don’t go. I know how badly we want that first project, but we all need to draw our lines.

Never have I ever butt dialled anyone?

I feel I've done everything in this lifetime.

Never have I ever sent a wrong text to somebody?

I was in the office where there used to be a horrible boss like how all of us have. We were doing a presentation on the next shows that we should be making. I had written down this whole rant, thinking that I’m sending it to my friend, and I sent it to the office group where I called out the boss and what not did I say. There was no delete feature back then. The next 6 months of my office life was hell, but I’m never ashamed of it.

Also read - Sargun Mehta talks about her film ‘Sohreyan Da Pind Aa Gaya’, to premiere on ZEE5 on 23rd September

Watch the interview below: