His life has changed a lot. If not overnight, a few weeks after his first film came to theatres, Antony Varghese – Pepe of Angamaly Diaries – got a lot of love. But fame has not messed with his head yet. So he’d like to clear the air on at least two wrong pieces of information that’ve been floating around about him. One, that he read 200 scripts before choosing his second film, and the other that he is going to Bollywood. Both are wrong, Antony says, on a phone call from Madhya Pradesh, where he has gone for personal reasons.
“Maybe my being here has also lead to the story of the Bollywood offer,” says the Angamaly man, who speaks with the same musical slang as Chemban Vinod, the actor who wrote the script of the hit movie. What happened was that he was invited to the birthday party of the editor of a popular film magazine in Mumbai. “We have been friends for some time since the movie came out,” Antony says, adding, “At the party, there were Bollywood celebrities like Karan Johar and Shahid Kapoor. I took selfies with some of them.”
The picture with Karan was picked up by someone and passed off as a sign of Antony’s entry into Hindi cinema. “Of course, I would be happy to act in Hindi cinema if I get a chance in the future, but right now it’s not happening. All Karan Johar said was he heard some good reviews about Angamaly Diaries,” Antony says. He dismisses the claim that he read 200 scripts.
“I have no idea where that number came from,” he says. Antony did read a lot of scripts, he admits, but this is too big a number for him to claim. After this news came out, people began ridiculing him on social media for his tall claims and arrogance. “I didn’t reply to those comments or say I was misquoted. I knew that would create new problems. So I just kept quiet,” he says. But when both rumors came in a row, Antony decided to address them. He will start shooting for his second film in October. “Swathanthryam Ardharathriyil is being directed by Tinu Pappachan who was Lijo Jose Pellissery’s chief associate director in Angamaly Diaries,” he says.
