For Jitin Gulati, acting was not a career choice that came suddenly. It was something that seemed to find him early. He stepped onto the stage for the first time, playing Lokmanya Tilak in a school Independence Day play when he was just four. Decades later, the stage and the camera remain the places where he feels most completely at home. “Every time I’m on the stage and I’m in front of the camera, I don’t want to be anywhere else.”The journey, however, was far from straightforward. Before becoming a full-time actor, Gulati spent nearly nine years as a banker, working with a bank in Delhi. The move to Mumbai in 2008 proved to be an important turning point. “At the time, opportunities outside Mumbai were limited, and the idea of making acting a livelihood seemed distant.”In Mumbai, however, he found himself surrounded by people who were actually working on film and television sets. “In my building, there were people who used to go on the set. It’s such a new thing to hear from people around you to say that I have a shoot tomorrow, that I have a call time of 6 am tomorrow.”Auditions soon became a regular part of his life. Gulati describes himself, with a laugh, as “a professional auditioner”. His first advertisement came after a month of auditioning, but it took several years of advertisements and countless auditions before his first film came along.For Gulati, those auditions were more than just a means to an end. “It’s a great practice place, honestly, auditions,” he says. The persistence eventually began to translate into opportunities, including his work in Broken But Beautiful and the projects that have now put him on the cusp of a new phase in his career.Looking back, Gulati describes the journey as “slow but steady”. From the outside, the progression might appear smooth, but he insists that it has involved its share of uncertainty and setbacks. “It’s marred with a lot of ups and downs and stuff,” he says. What matters to him is the direction. “The one thing that I’m glad about is that it’s an upwards journey and I’m moving forward.”That forward movement has brought him to two major pan Indian projects — Mahakali and Fauzi — while also opening the door to work across languages and genres.In Mahakali, a mythological fantasy drama, Gulati has a role he is not yet at liberty to reveal. What he can talk about is the extraordinary process of creating the character. The makeup alone could take around eight hours a day.“It was another level of patience, I think, that I’ve learnt while doing Mahakali,” he says. Yet, the experience was also deeply rewarding. Gulati has a particular affection for mythology and believes that the genre works best when spectacle is matched by genuine emotion.“If a mythology film doesn’t make me feel closer to who I believe in, I don’t think that it’s done its job,” he says. For him, the challenge is to use technology without allowing it to overshadow the emotional core of the story. Having watched director Prasanth Varma’s Hanu-Man, Gulati says he was drawn to the filmmaker’s approach and wanted to become part of that cinematic universe.His other major project is Fauzi, an epic war drama in which he has worked alongside big names, including Prabhas. Gulati describes the scale of the film as “massive”, recalling days when at least 500 people could be part of a scene. Set in the 1940s, the film has given him an experience that he calls “equally epic”.He has also taken lessons from the stars he has worked with. From Kajol (Maa), he says he has learnt that “the first take always is the best take”. Akshaye Khanna (Mahakali) taught him about “focus and intensity”, while Prabhas (Fauzi) impressed him with his collaborative approach. “He’s a producer’s actor. He’s a director’s actor. He’s a co-actor’s actor. He’s a technician’s actor. He’s somebody who really, really works as a team member,” Gulati says.There is another Hindi film waiting in the wings too — a wedding story that will mark Gulati’s first central lead character in a Hindi title. For an actor who has spent years patiently building his career, it represents another significant step.For now, though, Gulati is focused on what lies ahead. His philosophy remains simple: keep working, keep growing and make the audience’s time and money count. “The intent is always to do good work and make sure that whatever time and money audience give us, they get their value,” he signs off.Playing favouritesFilm: Mr. IndiaActor: Irrfan KhanActress: SrideviDirector: Mani Ratnam