Vicky Kaushal recalls dad’s struggles to survive in Bollywood: ‘He set himself on fire, broke his hand but couldn’t afford to fix it’

He added, “My parents have always been open about where every piece of furniture we own came from, and the hard work that goes into being able to afford things. They never hid their hardships from us. Both me and Sunny are aware of the hard work that has gone into the success that we’re seeing now, by god’s grace.”

Being an action director, Vicky said about his father, ‘you also have to be a stuntman before that for 10 years’. And when his father was working as a stuntman, there were hardly any safety precautions on sets, but he went through with it, because he had to put food on the table. “He’s lit himself on fire, he’s fallen off 10-storey buildings, there were no safety measure… He’s done all of that. The other day, he was telling me, the first time he rode a horse, he didn’t know how to. But if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been paid. He fell, and he fractured his hand. But he didn’t have the money to get it treated because he needed food. So, the bone is still broken.”

Vicky’s father also reminded him that unlike other aspiring actors who come to Mumbai for small towns and have to struggle to pay rent, he had a house to live in and food to eat when he started out in the industry. “You will have to work doubly hard to win that race, because (competitors) are trying to survive, and that instinct is always going to surpass your passion,” Sham Kaushal told him.