Siddharth Gupta has been a part of the entertainment industry for over a decade. But it was with Krishnavataram Part 1: The Heart that he got his due as an actor. His portrayal of Krishna captivated audiences and won widespread acclaim. “When I auditioned for this, the makers saw Krishna in me. I think Lord Krishna himself showed me to play this. That’s when I realised that I don’t really know much about it,” the actor tells us. Instead of watching film or TV adaptations, Siddharth prepped to play the divine being by immersing himself in Bhagavad Gita.
“So I started reading. I had a process of reading two hours before sleeping and after waking up I would read again. Through the day we would do the workshops. The Siddharth who got the character and who I am today are two completely different people. I started understanding my brain better,” says the actor, adding, “It’s not propagating anything, it’s more about a way of life. Even if you see Matrix the movie, it’s maya, it’s completely taken out of Gita. It shows you the power of human brain which we have not tapped into yet. All of those ansh you will find in Gita.”
Explaining it further, Siddharth shares, “Neo goes to Oracle, she asks him to choose a pill, blue or red. He says, ‘You know which pill I’m going to choose.’ So she says, ‘I wouldn’t be much of an oracle if I didn’t.’ So he’s like, ‘Then why am I here?’ She’s like, ‘You are not here to choose, you are here to understand why you chose what you chose. So the meaning of life is you only understanding why you did what you did. That is Gita. We think we are taking decisions. No, we are just understanding why we are making decisions. All the movies that you’re watching, everything connects.”
Apart from reading the Bhagavad Gita, the actor also made changes to his lifestyle for playing Lord Krishna onscreen. “My life automatically started changing, from sattvik food habits to sleeping habits. Even the way I spoke to people changed. I wouldn’t call it sacrifice, but that’s something I imbibed. It took me time to get back to normal after the film, but I don’t mind having a bit of Krishna in me forever,” Siddharth says with a smile.
The actor will now return as Krishna in the second installment of the Krishnavataram trilogy in 2027.