to be a part of the ensemble cast for Deepa Mehta's Midnight's Children, a 2012 British-Canadian film adaptation of Salman Rushdie's 1981 novel of the same name. He sped read the book to prepare for his role and attended a series of workshops to portray the role of Shiva, earning positive reviews for his performance. Siddharth then worked on Nandini Reddy's Telugu romantic comedy Jabardasth opposite Samantha, with the pair portraying wedding planners. Despite hype prior to release, as a result of the pair's off-screen relationship, the film garnered poor reviews with critics noting their characters "were poorly written". The film became a commercial failure, while also becoming entangled in a legal tussle soon after release of story theft. He also was subsequently seen in Srinu Vaitla's Baadshah, performing a guest appearance in a flashback sequence. His fourth release was David Dhawan's Hindi comedy film Chashme Baddoor, a remake of the 1981 film of the same name, which received negative reviews from critics. Next, Siddharth collaborated with debutant director Manimaran for the romantic thriller Udhayam NH4, written by Vetrimaaran. The film won positive reviews and performed strongly at the box office, with a critic from Rediff.com adding the actor "has given a very mature, yet understated performance". He then featured in Sundar C's commercially successful Tamil comedy film Theeya Velai Seiyyanum Kumaru portraying a timid IT employee who seeks the help of a love guru. His popularity in Telugu cinema meant that the makers shot the film in Telugu as Something Something. 2014–2016: Comeback to Tamil cinema By early 2014, Siddharth worked simultaneously on three Tamil projects claiming in an interview to The Hindu newspaper that the year was likely to "be a turning point in his career". His first release of the year was Karthik Subbaraj's musical gangster film Jigarthanda, where he portrayed an aspiring film director who travels to Madurai to make a film based on the life and times of a notorious rowdy. Siddharth was chosen by the director as "he had not done a role like it before", and his on screen character was named after and drew allusions to Karthik Subbaraj's career as a filmmaker. Co-starring Bobby Simha as the rowdy and Lakshmi Menon, Jigarthanda opened to positive reviews in August 2014. Reviewers noted Siddharth "gives a commendable performance" and that he "was simply terrific in the scenes where he plays a cat and mouse