Gunjan Chaudhary
Rithvik Dhanjani, a well-known face on Indian television, recently shared a deeply personal and unsettling experience from his early career in the entertainment industry. Speaking candidly on the Two Girls and Two Cups podcast, the actor opened up about his first encounter with the casting couch when he was just 20 years old. Rithvik Dhanjani recalled a specific incident when he was living in Mumbai and pursuing a career in acting.
Rithvik Dhanjani
Rithvik Dhanjani On Casting Couch
He described how, during an audition in Aram Nagar, he was selected from a line-up of actors by a casting director. What seemed like a breakthrough moment for the young actor quickly turned into a terrifying experience. “I was so excited when the director took me inside the studio and told me I had been shortlisted. It felt like an angel had appeared out of nowhere and chosen me. I was thrilled and thanked him,” Rithvik shared. “Then, he asked me to come to his office immediately, and I agreed without thinking twice.”
Rithvik Dhanjani
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But things took a strange turn when the director asked Rithvik how he had arrived. “I said, ‘On my bike,’ and then he said, ‘Okay, I’ll sit behind you.’” He noted, “A man this big should have a car, and if not a car, at least a bike. He was riding behind me on my bike, can you imagine?” As the duo made their way to the director’s supposed office, Rithvik continued to feel increasingly uneasy. “The director was talking about the stars he had launched, which made me feel a bit more at ease, but as soon as we arrived at his office, everything felt off.”
Rithvik Dhanjani
Rithvik said, “I noticed there was no office, just a grocery store and a bun-maska stall. I kept thinking, ‘Does he really do casting here? That’s impossible.’” The director then took Rithvik down a narrow alley that led to a locked gate, and when he opened it, Rithvik found himself in complete darkness, with a staircase leading upstairs. “I swear, I wet my pants,” Rithvik admitted, recalling his fear as he began to realize the situation was far from normal. “By then, I knew something was wrong. This wasn’t right.” The casting director asked Rithvik to show his showreel, but the situation quickly escalated. “He interrupted me and said, ‘In the industry, you don’t need to work hard, you have to work smart,'” Rithvik recalled. “Then he started touching me. As soon as he touched me, I froze. I was terrified. I was only 20 years old, shaking.”