Before dipping his toes in Bollywood, Arjun Rampal was a familiar face on the runway. The actor was a successful model before he turned to the movies. In a recent interview, Rampal opened up about how difficult this switch was and how he was struggling financially. He talked about how his first film took six years to release and how he was also struggling to pay rent.

In a conversation with Pop Diaries, Arjun Rampal talked about how he dealt with this dark time in his life after he quit modelling. He said, “I was a very successful model, and Ashok Mehta came to me with this film ‘Moksha’, where I was paired opposite this fantastic actor, Manisha Koirala. She was at her peak at that time… I was shooting a scene with her in the Chambal Valley, the rushes came and I saw myself and I hated myself. I thought, ‘My God, you’re horrible’…I didn’t know that the film would take six years to get made.”

Recalling this phase, the actor continued, “I had no source of income in that period of time. I was living in Seven Bungalows at that time, I had a wonderful landlord, a Sardarji. He’d come on the first of every month, and he’d look at me and I’d look at him. He’d say, ‘Nahi hai (You don’t have the money, do you)?’ And I’d shake my head. He’d say, ‘Koi nahi, tu de dega (Never mind, I’m sure you’ll pay me).’ He was the sweetest man; you need those kinds of breaks in your life.”

The actor also added that he does not like to talk about this dark time because he is afraid that he might manifest it again. He was last seen in ‘Crakk.’