Apr 16, 2026 10:30am IST
Vijay Varma: ‘I would Love to Direct a Straight-Up Horror Drama, not a Horror Comedy’ (EXCLUSIVE)
Actor Vijay Varma is all about betting on himself. His latest is “Matka King,” a new series for Prime Video, from director Nagraj Popatrao Manjule. But there’s another interesting gamble he’s keen on taking up: He wants to direct a film. And he knows just the genre he’ll be picking.
Vijay Varma sat down for an exclusive chat with Variety India, where he expressed his interest in directing a film. When probed further, the actor cheekily spilled the beans about the genre he’d pick: an out-and-out horror film.
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"I would love to do a horror set in Rajasthan. Very ‘jaadu-tona’ kind of a horror. Very psychological, [but] at the same time, straight-up horror, not like laced up with comedy. A horror drama."
The actor has had his trysts with horror in the past, the most memorable being the "Ghost Stories" anthology, in which he starred in Zoya Akhtar's segment. At a time when Bollywood has enthusiastically jumped on the horror comedy bandwagon, a pure horror drama sounds refreshing. When it comes to picking his next projects, he would love to do a comedy, a genre he feels there's a dearth of.
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After "IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack" and "Gustakh Ishq," Vijay is geared up for an eventful year. In his next, "Matka King," which releases on April 17, he plays Brij Bhatti, a cotton trader-turned-gambling king in 1960s Bombay. He stars alongside a cast that includes Sai Tamhankar, Kritika Kamra, Siddharth Jadhav, Jamie Lever, and Gulshan Grover. Apart from this, Vijay will also be seen in Netflix's upcoming series, "Family Business." The cast for this one is rather stacked, too, with Anil Kapoor, Akash Khurana, Rhea Chakraborty, Neha Dhupia and more.
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