When Vijay Deverakonda recalled working at a ticket counter, facing rejections: ‘It was incredibly hard to get in’

Vijay Deverakonda recalled that he first became interested in acting during his theatre days in college, when he worked behind the ticket counter. “You have to do everything from selling tickets to managing costumes to handling backstage before they give you a chance to act.” He shared an instance when, after the conclusion of a play, the whole team was called on stage. Instead of entering from the backstage, Deverakonda  walked on from the front and saw the whole crowd cheering. He said, “At that moment, I knew that this is the high I want for the rest of my life.”

But Deverakonda didn’t enter the film industry without a plan. He had decided that if he didn’t make it by 25, he would try something else. His Plan B was to write scripts or direct. Though it was tough for him to get work, he never lowered his expectations from life or his career. He said, “Even when I was a nobody, I refused to do so many films. I always felt that I was meant for bigger things. People said, ‘You will never get an opportunity like this’, but I had higher expectations from myself.”

Vijay Deverakonda ended up bagging Yevade Subramanyam just days before his 25th birthday.