When he was pursuing his undergrad in business management, Vedang Raina joined a talent agency as a side hustle, mainly to find opportunities in music and “to land a few modelling gigs.” Following the agency’s suggestion, he auditioned for an acting job that he says went horribly wrong. That upended his original plan. But though he failed the audition, he liked the experience. “My focus shifted from music to acting,” says the 26-year old actor, who kept working on improving his skills and auditioning for over two years till he secured his first project, Zoya Akhtar’s The Archies (2023).
After debuting as Reggie in The Archies, which is set in a fictional Anglo-Indian community of Riverdale in 1964 India, and following it up with Vasan Bala’s Jigra (2024) in which he played Alia Bhatt’s brother who is imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, Raina’s next big challenge came when he was cast in Main Vaapas Aaunga. In Imtiaz Ali’s Partition film, he plays the role of Keenu, a Sikh teenager who loses his home in Sargodha and the love of his life. Raina says: “I’m 26 today, and I play the character of a 18-year-old boy. So, I had to lose weight and the muscles which I had gained after working so hard. Since I was playing a Sikh, I had to grasp the nuances of their culture.”
Playing young Naseeruddin Shah in the film was a formidable challenge. Though Raina didn’t get to share screen space with Shah, he did receive some memorable compliments from the thespian. “Apparently, the first time Naseer sir saw the film, he said, ‘This young guy is brilliant.’ When I met him, he said: ‘Vedang, because of you, people are going to think that I’m an amazing dancer.’ Getting a compliment from him, especially when it comes to acting, is on everyone’s bucket list,” says the actor in a phone conversation.
Vedang Raina in Main Vaapas Aaunga, where he plays a Sikh teenager.
Though The Archies and Jigra received mixed reactions, the response to Main Vaapas Aaunga has been rewarding. “I always feel like I need to keep moving ahead. That’s what I felt even when there were setbacks. I’ll continue to feel like that, the need to improve, and to keep on going (even after his film’s success). Now, however, I believe I have taken one step closer toward the kind of actor I want to be,” says Raina, who found an emotional resonance with the film’s central theme. Raina’s family, who are Kashmiri Pandits, left Srinagar in the ’90s, moved to Delhi and later to Mumbai.
While portraying the character of Keenu, the actor could connect with the feeling of leaving everything behind and having to start afresh. “Through the film and while researching about that period and the Partition, I felt more connected to my Kashmiri roots. I found myself asking more questions to my parents and grandparents,” he says. Raina visited Srinagar for the first time in 2023 with his family. During this visit, he was moved by the way they spoke about Kashmir and their childhood in Srinagar. “I feel like I belong there and I want to go back there. Maybe, I will be able to live there someday,” says the Mumbai-based actor.
His passion for cinema is not limited to pursuing a career in acting but extends to understanding filmmaking and “consuming movies as an audience.” A self-confessed cinephile, whose room at home is dotted with posters of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976) and Casino (1995), he grew up watching acclaimed Hollywood films and Indian classics. Later, he explored world cinema. “I watch all kinds of films. I enjoyed watching Pyaasa (1957) and Mera Naam Joker (1970) as well as Goodfellas (1990). I love the movies of Quentin Tarantino and Akira Kurosawa. I have watched Satyajit Ray’s The Apu Trilogy and the movies of Bimal Roy, recommended by Imtiaz sir, are on my watchlist,” says Raina.
Even though Raina has emerged as an young actor to watch out for, singing still remains an integral part of his artistic journey. In the film, he has given voice to Maskara, composed by AR Rahman. Previously, he sang Jigra’s Phoolon ka taaro ka and Everything Is Politics in The Archies. “Singing is something that I’ve always done in my life. I used to perform during inter-school and inter-college festivals. I feel so alive when I sing on stage. When I’m getting these opportunities to sing, I feel the same excitement, except that now it’s a much wider audience,” says Raina, who wants to resume his Hindustani classical training soon.
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Raina’s talent, however, goes beyond acting and music. Recently, during a fun shoot, he surprised people with his cricketing skills as he hit most of the deliveries successfully. Does he have any other hidden talent? “I don’t know if this would be counted as a hidden talent. I am very good at a video game called FIFA. I used to play football too,” says Raina, who has been staying up at night to watch the FIFA World Cup 2026 matches.
Even though life has taken him away from academics, he still misses it. Raina, who had scored 97 per cent in Class 12 (science) board exams, recalls telling a school friend how he misses doing calculus or solving an integration question, and then referring to the textbook to make sure the answer is correct. However, he believes that more singing, acting demands “an academic approach”. “There is a lot of literature related to acting that you can study. I approach a performance or a character in a way similar to how I approached my board exams. It’s different in terms of the preparation, but it’s the same in terms of the effort put in,” says the actor, who eventually wants to dabble with screenwriting and direction.