Teen Spirit

The stakes are high for the first-time actor,but he is holding on well as the countdown begins. “I’m a khichdi of emotions,everything from excitement to nervousness,but I try to stay calm,” he says. He was studying commerce to become a chartered accountant when he realised that “a nine-to-five job isn’t for me” and launched his modelling career with the Elite Model Management and walked the ramp at the Lakme India Fashion Week for three years for designers such as Rocky S,JJ Valaya and Rohit Bal. Then Cadbury called him to be the eye-candy dude in their Kuchh meetha ho jaye campaign and soon Talwar was flying in and out of Mumbai for ad shoots.

“Finally,two years ago,I moved to Mumbai to try my luck in Bollywood. I rented an apartment in Lokhandwala and as my mother was not there survived on biscuits and milk for days on end,” he says. But,looking back,he feels that staying alone played a big part in understanding his character in Teen Patti,a rich brat called Abbas Sheikh who is unable to mix with people and make friends. “I used to be this guy who would hang out at Khan Market,Connaught Place and Chandni Chowk. As Abbas,I began to understand loneliness,a boy who gets his thrill by getting into dangerous situations,” says Talwar.

Teen Patti director Leena Yadav auditioned him seven times for the role,and then sent him and the rest of the cast to theatre people Barry John and Roysten Abel to learn method acting. “No,I didn’t try any dangerous stunts like Abbas did,but I did invest in a PlayStation and started playing games obsessively like he did to kill time,” he says.

Abbas is an engineering student at a college where Bachchan’s character is a mathematics professor. “The good thing about the script is that all the six main characters are important and add to the action. Since senior actors like Madhavan were friendly on the sets,there was a high comfort level even when we acted together,” he says. He last visited his New Rajendra Nagar home in January,and will be back to spend more time with his businessman father and two sisters after the film releases. His mother? “I brought her to live with me in Mumbai,” he chuckles.