Gadar 2 actor Simratt Kaur Randhawa says she went through intense ‘depressive’ episode because of no work: ‘Locked myself for months, would cry everyday’

Simratt Kaur Randhawa recalls how her parents would constantly be "sad" and "worried" looking at her condition, and ultimately offered her an advice that helped her navigate her low.

Actor Simratt Kaur talks about her journey to bag Gadar 2. (Photo: Simratt Kaur Randhawa/Instagram)

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When actor Simratt Kaur Randhawa was going through her worst phase professionally, it was her mother’s advice that helped her see the light: She might break a thousand times in her journey, but she can’t give up so soon. Four years later, Simrat is now gearing up for her big Bollywood debut with Sunny Deol’s Gadar 2.

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Simratt, who started her film journey with the 2017 Telugu movie Prematho Mee Karthik, says she wasn’t interested in pursuing acting as her career but post her debut she started to realise acting was her calling. There was only one glitch — despite her entry in films, no work came her way. The realisation of being an “outsider” in the industry dawned upon her.

“I’ve realised that you’ve to wait for the right time, keep struggling, hustle for it. Nothing comes easy here especially if you’re an outsider. You don’t have any contacts; the right people you can approach and say you are keen to be an actor. My entire struggle was where to begin, how to give the audition.

“I started in South but even after my first film there, I didn’t know what to do. I had meetings with production houses, they praised me, but nothing happened after that. I’d think what’s lacking, why am I not getting any work. Even in South I had to struggle a lot to get my next project and would simultaneously try here as well.”

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After several attempts to crack the code and make it big, Simratt, by 2019, had completely given up on her dream. The actor recalls going through an intense depressive episode, where she had locked herself down for “months” and would only cry for days on end. The feeling of being a “failure” had set in the 26-year-old actor.

“In 2019, I had almost given up on everything. It was the most depressing year of my life. I felt like a failure, that I couldn’t do anything in my career. I thought I am not good enough to be an actor, nothing was happening in South or Bollywood. So I went through a depressive mode, locked myself up for months. I stopped talking to everyone, cried days and days.”

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Simratt recalls how her parents would constantly be “sad” and “worried” looking at her condition, and ultimately offered her an advice that helped her navigate her low. “My parents were with me and told me that to reach a certain height, struggle will be the way. That I can’t wake up and be an overnight star. I have to break a thousand times to reach that position. That advice hit me hard, that I still have a long way to go and a struggle a lot. But the entire 2019 went in that, even parents were sad and worried, thinking, ‘Why is our daughter feeling this.’

“They even told me that if I don’t want to continue acting, I could do anything else but I was feeling like a failure. My mother said, ‘Baby you’re a kid, you’ve just started your journey. You can’t give up so early.’ Later Mukesh Chhabra came into the picture and things started getting better from there,” she added.