Parmeet Sethi revealed that his wife Archana Puran Singh’s criticism often brought him to tears, yet he never gave up on his acting career.
Parmeet Sethi and Archana Puran Singh have been married since 1992. The couple kept it a secret for many years, until Archana became pregnant with their first child.
While Archana was already a part of the film industry, Parmeet Sethi made his Bollywood debut only three years after his secret marriage to Archana. In an exclusive interview with Screen, Parmeet Sethi revealed how Parmeet was strongly against his acting career, and told him, “Tu kabhi actor ban hi nahi sakta.”
In a conversation with Screen, Parmeet revealed that he thought of becoming an actor after failing in business. He said, “I tried to start two different business ideas but I failed in both. I had nothing else. After the failure, I was confused about what to do.
Archana was against my acting career. She said don’t do it, it is full of struggles. I said, ‘If I fail as an actor, I will be responsible for myself but external factors in the business are making my business fail.’
I always knew I could act. I looked at Archana and I said, ‘Yaar, I will do it.’” When asked if Archana ever helped him get his first role, Parmeet said, “She is the strictest teacher you can ever meet. When I wanted to become an actor, she was the one who slammed me. She would yell at me every day.
‘Tu kabhi actor ban hi nahi sakta, tujhe toh muskurane hi nahi aata main muskurana bhi nahi jaanta.’ I would cry when she would criticise me. But I was stubborn, I pushed myself to the limit. It worked. I wasn’t a great actor before, but eventually I learnt the skill.”
Parmeet credited Archana for helping him prepare for his role in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. “I was from Bombay and she was from the North, so she was well versed with the language used there. She added a lot of specificity to my character Kuljeet.”
He also discussed his famous YouTube vlogs, which have earned him over 671,000 subscribers in just four months. Parmeet explained how it all started for him, “I had no idea about vlogs. Archana and my younger son asked me why I don’t do YouTube and Instagram.
They said, ‘During the lockdown, your videos went viral, people loved watching your fun banter with your maid Bhagyashree.’ Archana decided that we should continue with our vlogs. I was never a part of those conversations.
I am not a very active person on my social media. It so happened that within 2 days, three big companies approached us to do our YouTube production.” He added, “When people approached us, Archana went to meet them and then they decided to start it.
I started thinking, ‘Kya karoge?’ She said, ‘Covid me karti thi, hum wahi kaam karne karne, kya pata chal jaaye?’ When they insisted so much, I reluctantly said yes and that’s how we started.” Parmeet revealed that for his preparation, he started watching YouTube channels of comedian Bharti Singh and choreographer-filmmaker Farah Khan to understand how it all works.
He added, “Our first episode itself got 3 million views. Every video started getting the same kind of views. When we started inviting guests on our channel, it eventually became a mix of masti and podcast.” When asked who is the brain behind the themes of these vlogs, Parmeet said, “We decide the themes and topics for our vlogs together.
We keep experimenting with our content. Recently, we have been doing food vlogging as we have received a very good response for it.”
So far, the family has shared around 95 videos, most of which have received more than a million views.
Parmeet Sethi told Archana Puran Singh was against his acting career, always criticised him: ‘Tu kabhi actor ban hi nahi sakta, tujhe to muskurane hi nahi aata’
