Sidhartha Mallya said that he objects to the use of words like ‘rejected’ and ‘failed’ when it comes to talking about art. He was addressing reports about him not landing a role in Priyanka Chopra’s Quantico.
Slamming the India media Sid Mallya said, “They used the word ‘failed’. And I just love the way that the Indian press go to these very negative terms. The fact of the matter is, you have 100 people auditioning for a role. You don’t get the role, someone gets it. That doesn’t mean you ‘failed’ or you got ‘rejected’. It’s not a test, it’s art.
It’s subjective. I found that very funny… If that’s the case then I failed in over a 100 auditions – Sid Mallya says. Great. But it’s different in the West. In India, we’ve seen this, there’s a much quicker route for people to go from zero to stardom and lead films than there is in the West, in that model.”
He admitted that he probably isn’t as far along in his career as he thought he would’ve been when he started focussing on his acting career, but he feels that he has paid his dues by doing auditions and going to drama school. Sidhartha said that ‘there were much quicker ways’ for him to attain success ‘with the access’ that he had.
In an earlier interview, he had also spoken about auditioning for a ‘Mexican part’ in the HBO series True Detective. “They loved my audition, but I didn’t look like a gangster from any angle,” he said.