#AFilmThatChangedMyLife: 'Avatara Purusha' actor Sharan talks about his life-changing moment in cinema

Over the course of the past 20 odd years, Sharan has only grown in strides as an

actor

. His career is a thorough testament to the fact that if one were to remain humble and embrace life and opportunity as they come, they are certain to find their place in the sun sooner or later. Having begun his acting career through weekly Kannada serials on Doordarshan in the mid-90s, Sharan's entry into cinema happened as a matter a pure chance (also unsolicited) but he forged on, nevertheless, and found more exciting opportunities over time. Today, he is one of the more sought-after actors in the business with an array of vibrant offers in his kitty along with a production venture of his own.

In this first episode of the series titled "A Film That Changed My Life", Sharan recounts how his debut film outing, 'Prema Prema Prema' (1996), ushered him into a new territory and changed his life overnight. The first meeting with the legendary director

S. Siddalingaiah

, his slow transition into a "comedy" actor, and many other little moments are still vivid in his head which get unraveled as he walks down the memory lane.

To begin with, I did not ever aspire to be a film actor despite being born into family of artists. I used to love performing on the stage by acting on screen never seemed my "cup of tea" and even when I was given a few offers in my early 20s, I declined them because my goal was far removed from the film world. I was, in fact, doing a computer course at the time, a diploma in computer science to be precise, and was promised placements soon after and that was to be my future career at that point. I had always felt that I wasn't cut out to be an actor and was also apprehensive about trying out such a precarious field in my mid-20s. "What if I gave it a shot for a couple of years and then eventually failed?" - this rang in my head constantly because if I did fail, I would have to start my life from the scratch. However, in order to pay the computer course fee and also the bills at home, I began acting in serials like 'Manethana' and others for Doordarshan," shares Sharan about his reluctant start to his acting career.

But things would take a course of their own and Sharan would, unbeknownst, simply follow a plan laid out for him. His career in serials would keep him afloat but venturing into films was still not an option, until the call from the legendary S. Siddalingaiah arrived.

"This must be sometime in 1998 or 99 and I am a few serials old now. The career's sailing smoothly, so to speak, but one day I get a call from Siddalingaiah sir's house and the person on the other end says "Is this Suchi's house?". I reply a yes and at that point, if a director called me at my place, it was most likely to be for my sister Shruti. I was already a little frazzled that the mighty Siddalingaiah sir had contacted us but when the person representing him (his son-in-law, I would guess) said that it was for me, I was dumbstruck for a few seconds. They said that sir wanted me to play a role in his upcoming film and would like to meet me once - I was still struggling to find words but somehow managed to utter out a "yes"".

"So, following this phone call, I went and met Siddalingaiah sir at his residence and very coy for obvious reasons. He was sitting by himself and seemed completely at ease when talking to me about it. One interesting point here is that he wanted to cast me for an out-an-out comedic role whereas I had almost no experience doing comedy on screen. All my roles in serials till that point were very serious, almost villainous, barring one single episode where I did a bit of comedy. And as destiny would have it, turns out that Siddalingaiah sir was scripting my character in his film right that moment and happened to catch a glimpse of my "comedy" performance on TV. Now, imagine the coincidence here - this was a time when episodes were shown once a week on TV and he was to script my character during that tiny 20-minute window. I suppose I was meant to be an actor, after all".



Sharan, today, is a bonafide leading man in Kannada films who has over 100 entries to his filmography. His upcoming venture with director Suni, '

Avatara Purusha

', is slated to release in two parts with the first one coming out on December 10th.