Grit Fights Fear

It’s not always about luck, it takes hard work to seize the day.

- Gagan Dhillon

I used to pester my mother [actor Neelima Azeem] as a child to take me to film shoots. I loved the energy of a studio—instructions being hurled across the floor with busy assistants rushing about. All the ruckus disappeared the moment the cameras came on. I wanted to be a part of that moment when the attention shifted from the background to the actor.

As a child I used to think I’d be good at this [acting] and would beg my mother, plead even, to let me give it a shot. My mother tells me the story of how, eventually, when I was six, she gave in and took me to the sets of a television show to help me experience being in front of the camera. I was there for two days.