Uri actor Vicky Kaushal, who is currently in home quarantine with his parents, is celebrating his 32nd birthday on Saturday. Vicky made his Bollywood debut with Neeraj Ghaywan’s Masaan, which premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, winning two awards.

In an interview, it was revealed that Vicky’s father, the action director Sham Kaushal wasn’t sure of his talent until he saw his debut film, Masaan. He believed the casting directors, only when reviews came in.

Sham told Hindustan Times in an interview, “As his father, I can’t see what those who cast him see in him, but when I saw Masaan, I realised he really is an actor. And then the reviews and responses started coming and we could not believe this is our life.”

In Masaan, before he got the role, Vicky was headed for a life in the corporate sector. He displayed a flair for theatrics even in his interview for an engineering position. “In my interview, they asked me why do I want to be an engineer,” Vicky recalled in an interview to ED Times. “I said, ‘Aam aadmi badi buildings ko sirf dekh sakta hai, engineer unko banana jaanta hai (the common man can only gaze at building, an engineer can make them.)’ I got the job even without answering any technical questions but I dropped it.”

Vicky became acquainted with Neeraj Ghaywan when they were both assisting Anurag Kashyap on Gangs of Wasseypur. At the time, Neeraj was still working on the Masaan script with writer Varun Grover. “The role that I play in the film was earlier offered to Rajkummar Rao and Manoj Bajpayee was going to play Sanjay Mishra’s character,” Vicky had revealed in an interview to Rediff. In fact, Vicky said, Neeraj had already shot a five-minute promo with Rajkummar.

But when scheduling conflicts forced Rajkummar to drop out, Vicky was given a call by the casting department. “I thought it would be for a small role as the lead cast was already finalised. I auditioned for the role and a week later, I got a call from Neeraj saying that I was doing the lead role in Masaan,” he told Rediff.

In the film, Vicky plays a character whose family is in the business of cremating dead bodies, because of the caste they belong to. As a Mumbai lad, Vicky said he found it hard to play someone so far removed from himself.

When the film received a standing ovation after its Cannes premiere, Vicky said that “it was a rare moment where I felt patriotic. I realised that the audience was not clapping for an individual but for the team that came from India with such a beautiful film.”

Since then, it was no looking back for him. He went on to do some of the best films including Uri: The Surgical Strike, Raman Raghav 2.0, Raazi and Sanju.

On the work front, he has biopics on Udham Singh and Sam Manekshaw, the period epic Takht, and the fantasy film Ashwatthama in the pipeline.