Actor Vijay Varma could also be identified for his darkish, complicated characters on display, however step inside his dwelling, and also you meet another person totally. “I’m a homebody,” he tells Architectural Digest in a house tour video. “I like being at dwelling once I’m not working. I don’t actually vacation a lot. So the house must really feel like a vacation dwelling.”
That concept, of constructing a sanctuary, not only a house, guides each nook of Vijay’s Mumbai dwelling. Designed to replicate his love for solitude, tales, sneakers, and cinema, the house is heat and intimate, but unpredictable. “My temporary to [the designers] was I need to make this house a bit of extra intimate, extra cosy, extra me. A bit of eclectic, a bit of modern.”
From the outset, Vijay had a powerful imaginative and prescient for a way his dwelling ought to really feel. “I mentioned I needed quite a lot of texture in the home. I needed lighter colors,” he explains. “Your complete flooring is brown-heavy, and even that wall… there’s quite a lot of wooden and brown round. So I needed to herald some lighter tones.”
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To create that sense of belonging, life and artwork fill each house. “Plenty of crops, quite a lot of life, and quite a lot of artwork,” he provides. From curated bookshelves to handpicked corners, the home is segmented into intimate zones. “We’ve created a number of completely different corners—like that is the dwelling space, that’s my leisure unit, and that’s the place I hold most of my books. These should not all—I’m nonetheless taking a look at extra books to maintain at completely different locations.”
Vijay’s books, comics, and childhood heroes
For somebody who as soon as tread the experimental theatre circuit, the books on his cabinets aren’t simply décor. “These are all my Hindi books. Books I picked up throughout my theatre days. Each time I am going to Prithvi Theatre, I decide up extra books.”
And in a transfer that may shock some, a complete part of his bookshelf is reserved for comics. “These are all Sandman collection—Neil Gaiman’s iconic work. And these—Tremendous Commando Dhruva, Nagaraj. These had been my heroes rising up. These are our homegrown DIY superheroes. I like them.”
As you discover deeper, the house reveals itself like a dwelling autobiography. There’s a framed letter from Amitabh Bachchan that holds a particular place on the wall. “That is particular. It is a letter despatched to me by Mr Bachchan on February 22, 2019. That is the rationale why I finished giving auditions.”
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There’s a portrait that looks like a self-reflection. “This was gifted to me by my pal and designer Karan Torani after a marketing campaign we did collectively. He acquired some artists to color an image of me. This makes me really feel like there are a lot of moods of me—and these are all me in numerous occasions of the day.”
Then there’s the tiny snake figurine, picked up from his very first movie set, Chittagong, in 2010. “I purchased this for like 20 rupees.”
Of sneakers and sentiment
If there’s one factor that rivals Vijay’s love for artwork and books, it’s sneakers. “Please come—the love of my life, my sneakers,” he says with a smile. His assortment started in 2018, sparked by a present. “The primary [pair] was gifted to me by director Anurag Kashyap. He gave me New Stability footwear and I wore them—and I fell in love with them.”
The remainder of the home continues like a reminiscence map. A Bruce Lee poster from the set of Janja, a nod to each his character and his real-life admiration for the martial arts icon, hangs between his vainness and bed room. “Me and my father each are obsessive about Bruce Lee.”
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Then there’s essentially the most private room, the bed room. “That is the one room the place I’ve indulged in quite a lot of my very own pictures,” he confesses. The partitions are coated in posters of Wong Kar-wai’s movies, one other cinematic inspiration.
Vijay ends with a sentiment that really captures the spirit of the place. “A house is an extension of who you’re. If there isn’t a synergy between who you’re and the house you reside in, then there’s a sure type of imbalance.”
He constructed this dwelling, not for traits or aesthetics, however for fact—for who he actually is. “I needed to make the house as a lot me as I can. So it offers you an thought of who this particular person might be.”
And in that, he’s succeeded. His dwelling isn’t simply lovely—it’s alive with story, soul, and gorgeous contradictions. Identical to him.
