Vijay Varma debuted at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, much ahead of his time, yet he claims stylists wouldn’t dress him.
Vijay Varma is finally receiving the recognition he deserves in Bollywood, but the road there hasn’t been smooth. With Monsoon Shootout, a movie that had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, the actor made his Bollywood debut. But did you know that designers passed on styling him since he wasn’t “well known”?
It’s reasonable to assume that Vijay’s career changed for the better after the release of Gully Boy. Since then, he has worked on a number of noteworthy projects that are also considered to be on the “A-list,” including Super 30, Darlings, and Mirzapur. The criminal thriller Dahaad, which premiered at Cannes 2023 to rousing acclaim, will be his next project.
When making his red carpet debut at Cannes in 2013, stylists looked down on Vijay Varma, illustrating the dark underbelly of Bollywood.
He said, He shared, “When I came here, I bought one jacket from Zara, which I could afford. But for the main event, for two events, they said you have to wear the whole suit. And I went to people, saying, ‘Can some designer come, can some stylist help me out?’ And they said, ‘Who’s Vijay Varma? We don’t want to dress anybody.”
He further said, “So, a friend of mine gifted me a Zara suit, which I wore for the morning photo call. And somebody stitched me a tuxedo for the red carpet. That’s how I went. When I saw the pictures, they came out on Getty Images and all these places, which I didn’t have money to buy from.”
In retrospect, Vijay Varma thinks he looked good and refers to himself as the Marwari Johnny Depp.