Siddharth Malhotra and Jacqueline Fernandez, who’ll be seen in A Gentleman next, have a lot in common.
They are young and don’t come from film families. Jacqueline is an ex-Miss Sri Lanka, while Siddharth was a model and an assistant director. Jacqueline is completing a decade in the industry, while Siddharth has been here for just seven years.
A Gentleman is an action-comedy. “I’m playing a double role, Gaurav and Rishi, for the first time. Gaurav is a gentleman—sweet, nice and correct. He has a nine-to-five job. He cooks and wants to have a good home,” says Siddharth. “Rishi is tough, strong and risky. One is action intense and the other is lighter and slice-of-life kind of guy.”
Jacqueline plays “a girl who loves Gaurav and Rishi. Gaurav is this soft-spoken man who loves to cook and keep the house clean. He’s there when his girl is in trouble. Rishi is a very bad boy, unpredictable and exciting. I’m rough and tough and lecture Gaurav all the time, but with Rishi I’m quiet and shy. Two different sides of me with two different characters”.
Their onscreen chemistry is sizzling. Siddharth says, “Jacqueline is always happy. I don’t know what medicines she takes.” Jacqueline gushes, “I bond well with him because we come from similar backgrounds. We both left our hometowns and started from scratch to make it here. We don’t belong to film families.
I used to feel lonely here, but after working with Siddharth, I realised there are people there who care for us. He is very confident whereas I lack self-confidence. He keeps boosting me all the time.” About his journey in films, Siddharth is grateful. “I began from zero. My personality has changed now. I wasn’t aware of a lot of things.
Now I’m absorbing a lot; be it script, music, production, budgets. You have to be on your toes literally. It’s been a long journey and I had my share of struggles. There’s no fear now as I have seen it all. Next year I’ll start producing films.”
Jacqueline has lived on her own for quite some time, and taking her own decisions has taught her a lot of patience. “To be in Bollywood, you need patience. I used to trust everyone earlier, but now I have trust issues. I was naive, and now I’ve learnt to be smart. I wish I could be like a child, but not everyone has good intentions. I was 19 when I migrated to India.
I had no family, friends or anyone in the industry. I landed at Mumbai Airport at 3 am. There were about 100 taxis, and it was scary. I don’t know if I could go to another country and live and do the same thing,” she says.
Both have their plates full of work. Siddharth has Abhay Chopra’s thriller and murder mystery Ittefaq, Aashiqui 3 opposite Alia Bhatt, and Neeraj Pandey’s Agiary, a socially relevant thriller-cum-drama. Jacqueline has director Tarun Mansukhani’s Drive, David Dhawan’s remake of Judwaa, Abbas Mustan’s Race 3, Salman Khan’s Kick 2 and a film by Remo D’Souza.