Prashant Verma On ‘I’ll Find A Way’ | Trauma, Healing & Honest Art - video Dailymotion

OutlookIndia

Actor-singer Prashant Verma speaks to Outlook about his new single, 'I’ll Find A Way'. The music video releases tomorrow (December 12, 2025).  Building on Outlook’s ongoing coverage of mental health — from our August 2025 issue on freedom from the stigma of mental illness to our World Mental Health Day issue — Verma reflects on trauma, artistic vulnerability and the shift from ‘I’ to ‘we’ in healing.  From his transition out of fashion to embracing raw artistic vulnerability, Verma tells us why discomfort often births the most honest art.   Reporter: Rani Jana Camera: Vikram Sharma, Tribhuvan Tiwari, Suresh Pandey Editor: Sudhanshu   #OutlookIndia #PrashanttVerma #MentalHealth #MentalHealthAwareness #MusicInterview #ArtistInterview #TraumaAndRecovery #ArtAndHealing

Transcript

00:00Hi, I'm Rani Jana and today I'm with Prashant Verma. For our audience joining in, Prashant

00:06is an actor, singer and formerly a fashion designer. But today he's joining us because

00:13of his new song release, which is called I'll Find a Way.

00:30Many people might already know, but Outlook has done two issues on mental health. We did

00:37one in August 2025, which was freedom from the stigma of mental health illness. And the

00:43second one around October, when it is the World Mental Health Day. So we'll talk about

00:49the song, which also has a lot to do with processing trauma in, if I may say, unhealthily ways at

00:57times, if you see it like that. So thank you so much for joining us and congratulations

01:02on your new single. Thank you so much for having me here.

01:05So I'll start with the title of the song, which is called I'll Find a Way. Even before somebody

01:12clicks play, there is a message there, right? Like I'll find a way. It's like a motivation.

01:18It's hopeful. So how did you come up with the title and what was the inspiration?

01:23I feel like the title came first in this piece. It's almost like a mix of a torch song and

01:29a battle cry at the same time. Because like you said, the minute you read that phrase or

01:35that sentence, it's almost like a chant in your mind, no matter what, whether you're finding

01:41it as a song or you just come across it as a thumbnail somewhere. It's a statement that I feel

01:48almost everyone has made at some point in their lives. And it's like a resolution.

01:53Absolutely.

01:54You know, when I, in fact, like when I wrote this song, I was unaware of what it would end

02:02up being about. The thing about life or destiny is that it throws things at you, which you never

02:09knew would be your life story. Also, I feel somewhere in the song, in the process of writing it, interestingly,

02:18the song actually has two parts. The first is when it runs with the chant, I'll find a way.

02:27And then it changes to we find a way.

02:30So why that shift from I'll to we, like at what point does it become not just your, you

02:38know, personal challenge, but something that your community and other people around you can

02:44also support you with, you know, the same thing we have issues with, like when we speak

02:50of mental health, right? Like there's so much isolation when it comes to if someone is dealing

02:54with something, a lot of people have this tendency of isolating, right? They try to move away from

03:00their friends, they don't want to meet up, they don't want to reach out, right? And then suddenly

03:04you realize you sit down with your friends and you discuss the issue or problem. And it doesn't

03:09seem as big as it was, you know, in your head. So how did you think of that transition?

03:16History is one of the greatest evidence that you have of people making it through. When it was a

03:27personal point, the words are, I'll find a way. But when it comes to the larger talking of history,

03:35history, it's not we'll find a way, it's we find a way. There's an absoluteness to it that like,

03:42history will affirm that in moments of challenge, people did march on. The two verses that I feel

03:50that sort of, since you spoke of mental health, at the center of the song, the one most biographical

03:56part is, I fetishized success, I objectified myself, and that which couldn't kill me, left me longing for more

04:06violence, I'll find a way. And then the verse that talks about the world at large is, all these days,

04:15all this pain, each one tries, each one dies, but we find a way. Love's not always the answer,

04:25but we find a way. And I feel like, you know, like you said, you have friends, you have family,

04:32you have heroes. There are people we've never met in our lives, living or gone, whose stories help you

04:40even determine what the goal of your life is, what you want to do, how you process. You look at stories,

04:46you look at real life incidents, how people dealt with trauma in the past, and you try those things

04:53out, you see if it works for you, if it doesn't, you move on to the other. What's important is you reach out.

04:59You transitioned your career from a fashion designer to music, which I've already mentioned to the

05:07audience. So I would like to circle back to that since we have spoken so much about human behavior

05:13and artistic expression. So how did that transition come about? When I started off my career as a fashion

05:21designer, the people whose work really sort of not just inspired me, but like I said before, I looked at

05:28their work and I was like, yeah, that that's what I want to do with my life, were very larger than life

05:35and artistically brave designers. I had the great privilege of having to intern under them when I

05:44was young. Both Alexander McQueen and John Galliano are designers who sort of worked at creating an entire

05:52visual universe. Not just visual, actually sonic and experiential. So when I stepped into fashion,

06:00the gold standard in my head was everything has to be brilliant. You have to be great at making clothes,

06:08prints, embroideries, accessories, shows, writing, music, imagery. And I did that and slowly realized,

06:20wait a second, this is what I might have actually admired when I was even looking at other artists

06:26or other mediums before. When I started showing at Fashion Week, my shows were sort of this strange

06:33amalgamation of clothes and performance. Fashion was at the center and all the other art forms were

06:42around it to help tell the story. And eventually it came to a point where I sort of exhausted my life

06:50experience of what I had to tell in that moment and stepped back to gather more. And it was a clear

06:57indicator that maybe the medium also needs to change. I didn't do it intentionally, it just so happened,

07:04you know. That as I progressed from one show to the next, the imagery that was being done for

07:12campaigns and still photographs turned into short films and then moved into live performances. And

07:21acting and performance was something I'd been interested in my whole life, even in high school,

07:26because I had the great opportunity of working with Barry John as a director when I was younger.

07:31And then I moved on from fashion to start dabbling in other mediums. I started studying acting,

07:39I started studying music. You know, one thing leads to another. You move cities. I moved from here to

07:43Bombay. I spent time in New York. And film, music, musical theater, fashion, pop culture, they are very

07:54different mediums, yes. But at the end of the day, they're also, like what we were discussing, they're so

08:00intrinsically linked to how we exist as human beings. And clothes become your appearance, music

08:10becomes a soundtrack to your existence. They're very different. How I moved from one to the next was

08:17slightly organic. It just, you know, destiny is destiny. I'll come to the music videos, which many have

08:24regarded as provocative because of a deep exploration of gender and sexual expression in those videos and

08:34visuals. So how do you take that, the provocative part? Like, I've sort of heard this word provocative

08:40being thrown around about my work from day one. It is what it is. I don't get to control the nature of

08:48the beast I've been handed. Don't get me wrong. There are times that when I come up with an idea, I feel,

08:54oh God, this could get me in trouble. That's because it is uncomfortable. That's because it is difficult.

09:01And there's nothing new unless it's uncomfortable. There's nothing new unless, and I don't mean this in terms

09:08of like, just provoking people by giving them something to shock them. Just if it's uncomfortable for you to do as well,

09:17it is going to teach you so much. It's going to make you braver. It's going to give you more evidence in life

09:22that you took big steps and inspire you, or let's say, keep you motivated to keep

09:28upping your game as you evolve as an artist or even as a human being. You know, everybody has to take certain

09:35difficult decisions in life, whether it is taking a career that you want, which may or may not align

09:42with what people around you expect or encourage. Brave, difficult steps that anyone takes in their lives

09:52in any aspect can inspire others to do the same in any field, you know. So I feel if I start pulling

10:02back on being a certain kind of artist in my work, I fear that the same pulling back would start happening

10:11on me as a human being. And that would not be right. We should live in a world where we can

10:19do our best work, give our best love, share our best selves. And for that, you can't hold back and live,

10:29you know. Do you have anything specific for the audience in mind while you made this song or?

10:36That's an interesting question. I'm at a loss of words suddenly because like, I feel like having

10:43ambition and being able to serve as an artist, we're mutually exclusive. But in the world we live in,

10:51unfortunately, reality is not that way. You have to have clear goals with where you want your life to go,

10:59where you want your career to go, how much and how fast. So yeah, I hope at one side,

11:06deep inside that the song reaches a larger number of people, resonates with a lot of people,

11:13and helps a lot of people. But also, artistically, I do know that like, when you create work,

11:20your responsibility is to just, like I said, tell the truth and put it out there. After that,

11:25what happens with it, who it impacts is not in my control. Because strangely, the song, you know,

11:35came to me, and came through me. So in a way, I can't control the song's destiny.

11:42You know, yeah, so if my job was to work hard and hone my skill set so that I could express

11:54this message to the best of my abilities. Before we end this interview, is it okay if I ask you to maybe

12:02sing like two lines from your new song? Sure, I can give it a shot because we both know the current AQI,

12:12is it very conducive? But yeah, let's try.

12:17All these days, all this pain, each one tries, each one dies, but we find a way,

12:34we find a way, we find a way, we find a way, we find a way. Love's not always the answer,

12:54but I'll find a way, but I'll find a way, I'll find a way, I'll find a way.

13:14Thank you so much. Thank you. That was really nice. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Of course.

Prashant Verma On ‘I’ll Find A Way’ | Trauma, Healing & Honest Art

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