Acting the first rule l Get out of your comfort zone

There are more than, a million books on acting, a million acting-schools, a billion of actors worldwide - having read, done masterclass and interacting and worked with a couple of them; I realized the first rule of acting is to get out of 'your' comfort zone. As you go about playing different characters in your career, you have to understand, you are not playing yourself; you are portraying the character and your success as an actor is to live that character.

I started acting on the insistence of one of my fav actresses I launched, Reema Ali, also one of my producers. This was in 2007, in the 16 years I have acted in 48 features, 200 shorts and many TVC's including Nokia, Surf Excel, J.K. Tyres. Each project required me to get out of my comfort zone.

The toughest undoubtedly were, a film directed by my dear friend, Margarita. It was my first film where I went nude and had to feature in a couple of sex-scenes, it was very very tough for me.

The second of course was the horse-riding sequence in the picture below.

The reason all the cast and crew were scared was, there have been so many horse-riding accidents involving stars both in India and in Hollywood. Mind you we didn't even have a stunt-director, an action-director or even a horse-trainer!

On the hindsight it was a very stupid decision, but then we got the shot!

I realize that all actors have fear not only of performing action sequences but also whether they will be accepted in a certain role. This fear hugely curtails the growth of an actor.

These fears can be both hugely allayed and fully overcome by assuring yourself that everything will be alright. It is a continuous process for any actor.

I feel the biggest strength of any actor is self-assurance that everything is going to be alright.

Every time I see this shot on screen today, more so on cinema-screen, I feel elated that I overcame my fears and did this horse-riding shot ever so flawlessly!