I didn’t come here to become famous, I came here to act, says Chandan Roy Sanyal

Kabir Singh Bhandari

Chandan Roy Sanyal is currently on a high with the recent release of Aashram Season 3, in which he plays Bhopa Swami and has replaced Bobby Deol’s Baba Nirala as the head of the ashram. In a Zoom video interview with us, the 45-year-old actor tells us about his early beginnings in Rang De Basanti and Kaminey, his production house, and how he wants people to understand that, to him, it’s acting that is important, not being famous.

Q. In all the roles which you’ve played till now, which do you think has gotten you the maximum recognition? Is it Aashram?

A. I think Bhopa in Aashram and Mikhail in Kaminey. But since there was not much social media back in 2009, I don’t know what was the magnitude of that character’s impact on the audience because it was just newspapers, television, and people talking about it, with the song playing everywhere. So it was a completely different time, and I cannot judge what Mikhail would have been.

Q. You don’t come from a film background, so how did Bollywood happen?

A. I come from a middle-class Bengali family in Delhi. I grew up with my aunts and uncles from my maternal side, and they were all into movies, music, books, and literature. So, while growing up, I would listen to Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Kishore Kumar, and Md. Rafi. My mother used to take me to watch films by Mrinal Sen, and I used to watch a lot of Hindi films. I remember watching Mr. India as a kid and being completely mesmerised by the world of cinema.

So, I was always into movies and music, but I never thought that I would become an actor. In Delhi, the college theatre scene is very strong, and everyone does it. But when I did it, it gave me an immense sense of joy and some kind of bravado because I used to be very shy when I was growing up. So, when I went on stage, I overcame this whole idea of being shy. I could not talk much about the reserved. All that sort of started fading away with acting, and that gave me a reason to become an actor. I became someone else when on stage; it was not about being a movie star, doing cinema, or becoming famous.

Q. Did you think get the kind of recognition you deserved after Kaminey?

A. I was primarily a theatre actor then and didn’t know much about PR. It was hardly an eight-minute role, but it had a huge impact on the audience. I just did a few interviews then with film journalists who had liked my role and called me up.

So, there was no strategy; it happened by accident. I was doing theatre in England when I got the call for Kaminey. I was also in Rang De Basanti, but post that, I got a huge opportunity to work in a British production, and that took me to England, America, and Europe, traveling for four years. The kind of satisfaction I was getting out of it was immense, and I did not want to come back.

I didn’t know about the process. People said I needed a manager, a publicist, that I should do only certain kinds of films, walk like this, and talk like that. The only thing I knew was that I wanted to do quality films.

I didn’t come here to become famous; I came here to act. I really want people to understand me that I’m not a failure. These are the kind of conversations I want to have. I opened up to you because this perception of being famous—there is so much pressure it puts on actors. And then you become a slave to becoming famous and forget why you started off in the first place.