‘I slapped Ishaan Khatter so hard, he called me a…': Vihaan Samat on his favourite The Royal's scene when the set went quiet

Indian Express

20-05-2025

Vihaan Samat's characters have been unlucky in matters of the heart, whether it's Mismatched, Eternally Confused and Eager For Love, Call Me Bae or CTRL. This time, in The Royals, he's unlucky in matters of the throne. He plays Digvijay Singh aka Diggy, the son of an erstwhile king in modern-day Morpur, who is envious of his brother Aviraj (Ishaan Khatter) chosen to be the next in kin. In an interview with SCREEN, Vihaan breaks down his character, his prep for the role, and why he doesn't see playing the second fiddle as an assault on his reputation.
From being deprived of love to being deprived of the throne, have you observed this pattern in your filmography?
I have! Not exactly what you said, but something along the lines. I like to think of it as an underdog. That's what cinema is, right? You see a character who doesn't get what he wants, and then you see him go on a path to get that. In the end, does he get it? Or does he make peace with it? Or does he get something he didn't know he wanted? That's fascinating to me. Also, in cinema, you don't see a lot of love for people who fail. But that's the reality of life. Not everyone gets what they want. A lot of actors might not want to do roles where they don't succeed. Playing the one who gets it all is counterintuitive. It's fun to play characters up against a brick wall, and make them seem endearing and relatable. Because that's also life!
You do that so well. Because even in The Royals, he wants to be the king, but he's not aggressive. His approach is so gentle. How did you approach that?
Initially, I wanted to make it a bit more heartfelt. I wanted to have a sense of defeat on my face. Once I got to the set, the creators said it's not that serious. It can be funny. He's just playing around. So I thought maybe he wasn't that serious about it in the first place. He didn't want it that much that it would depress him.
Which was the scene you enjoyed the most filming?
Throughout the show, he just gets so defeated. Aviraj (Ishaan Khatter) gets all the attention and accolades. But there is this one scene where you see them as equals, if not Diggy being a little higher. I had to slap him, so I was being professional and gentle, and making sure Ishaan is okay. On the last day, Priyanka Ghosh, our director, came to me and said, 'Why don't you just slap him really hard, for real? This is the last take. Even if he gets red, this is fine. We have what we need. Just go for it!' I actually slapped him quite hard. His reaction, that's been kept in the final edit, is actually real. Everybody in the back was just quiet because the slap was really loud! The DOP was also laughing. Once 'Cut!' was yelled, everybody started laughing. Ishaan said, 'You absolute monster!' I think he wanted to slap me back, but he took it in his stride. And by the way, this was the first day of the shoot!
If I compare the two brothers, they're polar opposite in terms of where they are in life. Aviraj wants to run away from the kingdom although he's destined to be the king. Whereas Digvijay desperately wants to be the king, which is why he keeps his dream to be a chef to himself. How did you navigate that latent part of your character?
It's quite organic in his journey to want to be something so bad only to realise you want to be something else entirely. Just that you don't have the luxury of having 20 minutes per episode to justify that arc. So you just have to make sure you're really in it. It can look very jittery that he's doing one thing, then suddenly, he's doing the other. You have to push and drive home the change you see in him.
You've studied method acting in New York. So did you go all method on The Royals too?
Yes, I usually go method on all of my characters, but not in the terms of locking myself away in a room and eating only cheese for three months and becoming anorexic. We had a lot of dialect coaching and discussions with the culture. Obviously, because I'm not from Jaipur. I'm not from the royal family, as much as I wish I was. We also had a couple of lengthy discussions on what is a maharaja actually like. How much does he behave? How much do we use terms like khama ghani and hukum? Do we curse in front of the family? How much can we curse as siblings? How much in Hindi, how much in English? Not how royals have been historically, but how they are now.
Since your character plays a closeted chef, was there a lot of food and cooking involved in the prep?
My mom has been cooking for a really long time, and I've been in the kitchen around her. Then of course, I used to cook a little in college. Not much, just broccoli, carrots, chicken. Incidentally, I grew up watching MasterChef on TV. So the whole cooking competition was easy for me to understand. Then we also had some cooking training, like chopping, cutting, and pureeing so that it seemed natural on screen. The good thing is when Diggy is in the cooking competition, he's a fish out of water because usually in the palace, people sauté and prepare everything for him, and he just puts it together. So I didn't have to go all Heston Bluementhal on it.
In both your last projects — Call Me Bae and CTRL — Ananya Panday was the lead, while you took a backseat as the male lead. Was that ever a concern for you?
I'm glad you pointed it out. It definitely is a topic of discussion in our business about male-led, female-led, kiska film hai. Maybe I'm naïve, but I wonder how much control people have in the backdoors of the film business. My objective was very simple: I wanted to do good work, show off my chops, and bring life to characters people relate to. So I chose roles that allowed me to do that. In CTRL, I had a great monologue at the end. In Call Me Bae, I could bring humour to a very unlikeable part. So I don't regret anything or am not disappointed by anything. Without Ishaan and Bhumi Pednekar, would The Royals be #1 in multiple countries? Maybe, maybe not. Without Ananya, would Call Me Bae and CTRL get the viewership, the streamers, the budgets they had? I'm not sure. I'm just happy they were part of these. And I'm happy in the process, I could show what I'm capable of.
Your first ever on-set experience was Worth (2020), starring Michael Keaton. What did you pick up from there that you use in your performances today?
Humility and professionalism. I was on that set for one day because I had just one scene. What I learnt was everyone starts somewhere. You don't have to start off as the centre of attention, with everyone fawning and fussing over you. I realised it's okay, the world is a big place, you're young, and this is the business. Not everyone suddenly becomes the president of a company. And if that happens, they may have no idea how to run it. That experience made me feel for the first time that I deserve to be here. I've worked hard, I belong, I'm appreciated and valued.
The Americans were really professional in the way they handled timings, contracts, and all the logistical stuff. If we went half an hour overtime, they'd pay all the background union actors. Most of all, when Michael Keaton walked in, and I just saw him as Batman, the way he approached his process was so unique. I learnt there's a million ways to do this, there's no one way to go about it. He had his headphones on, then he suddenly took them off, chatted with the director and DOP, then with his accent coach, then blocked the scene himself, and then suddenly started talking to us. The director didn't say action, he just started talking. He really took control and decided he'd do what he wants to do, which was quite impressive.
How different is the experience of working with ensembles like in Mismatched and The Royals, as opposed to acting alone, like in CTRL?
When you can bounce off other people's energies, it just gives you more opportunities to improv and react differently. In Mismatched, the emotions are of course real, but the tone with which they are handled are completely different. Prajakta Koli was going through hell, but I was just having fun. Compare that to CTRL, where doing the monologue was the biggest challenge of my career. It was equally challenging, exciting, nerve-wracking, and scary. I got the lines one or two days before the shoot day. Plus, Vikram sir (Vikramaditya Motwane) maybe cut only once. So I had to get the whole chunk right. I'm so glad I did it because I felt if I do this right, I can do anything.