Apr 23, 2026 5:05pm IST
Media Trainers Janice Sequeira and Nupur S. Riat on How Salman Khan Gave Them Their First Students (EXCLUSIVE)
Media Trainers Janice Sequeira and Nupur S. Riat thought the superstar did not hear a word of the business pitch they made to him. But what did they know! An unexpected origin story of how Salman Khan got them their first batch of students.
Janice and Nupur have the kind of jobs most people in the industry wouldn’t envy. As media trainers, they have to tell newcomers in the film industry what to speak and how to present themselves before the camera. But it is a crucial gig in today’s age, one that even Salman Khan considers relevant.
In an exclusive conversation with Variety India, Janice and Nupur reveal the interesting origin story of their venture and how Salman Khan was critical in them landing their first six clients, all in just one evening.
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Janice and Nupur met in 2008 at a news channel and built their extensive careers in journalism. By 2015, both had stepped away from newsrooms, but the journalist in them never really left. Around this time, the digital landscape began transforming how public figures communicated in the media, and Sequeira spotted a gap. Politicians and public figures were being trained to face the camera. But was anyone doing the same for actors and celebrities?
The early reactions to her idea were dismissive, and she was told that newcomers were not a priority. But she pitched it anyway. And one person to take her seriously was Salman Khan. Sequeira went to meet him on the set of “Sultan”. “He looked very exhausted and so involved with everything else happening on his set,” Sequeira recalls of that first meeting. “I was sitting there pitching to him, and in my head I’m just like, ‘Is Salman even listening to what I’m saying?’” She left convinced nothing would come out of it.
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A year later, she got a call that changed her and Nupur's lives. A producer, close to Khan, called her and said four words: “Today, 7 o’clock, Galaxy.” “I’ve been summoned,” she jokes. What she found there surprised her. “I thought Salman was not listening to a single word I said. He remembered everything.” Khan had not just taken the idea seriously; he had actually called together the very people he wanted Janice to media train. “He introduced them to me and said, ‘Okay, Janice, your first class.’”
He did not hand them one or two clients. He handed them six newcomers at different stages to train. “Just to be really, really clear, we did not train Salman Khan. But he was the first one to say, ‘You know what? I think your idea might have feet.’” Nupur adds, “So he just threw us into the deep end of the pool!”
Today, Janice and Nupur work with actors, public figures and newcomers of the film industry to navigate the increasingly demanding world of press, interviews and public appearances, one media moment at a time.
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