Shashank Arora: Portrait of a young actor

Shashank Arora, 28

First movie: ‘Titli’ (2015)

To be seen next in: ‘Manto’ (2018)

The film you would like to take with you if you were marooned on an island?

Richard Linklater’s ‘Waking Life’

What’s the most desperate thing you have done to get into character?

For ‘Zoo’ (yet to be released), I was experimenting with what happens when you sell narcotics. It went out of hand and I got arrested.

The best piece of direction you’ve received?

Breathe. In 2008, Robert Reece, my professor from acting class in Mumbai, told me if you don’t focus on your breath while working, you are not even in the moment. He told me that doing nothing on screen is the most interesting.

A part of your body you like to hide from the camera?

My nose is massive. Literally and figuratively.

The most cinematic city in the world?

Montreal is picture perfect and you find art, love, jazz, student life there. It’s a city which gives birth to art and liberal communities, there are no barriers.

The movie that made you want to be an actor?

‘Singin’ In The Rain’ and ‘Shree 420’. They are the definition of entertainment and realism mixed together.

Your ideal breakfast at the start of a day’s shoot?

Mom’s ‘dal parathas’.