From engineering to acting - Pratik Gandhi on the fearless pursuit of his passion

Actor Pratik Gandhi is going to be seen in ‘Madgaon Express’, which is set to release this week. The actor, who shot to fame with his portrayal of Harshad Mehta in Hansal Mehta’s ‘Scam’, has a lot of projects in the pipeline. In an exclusive interaction with Adgully, Pratik talks about his career, the Gujarati entertainment industry, his upcoming biopics on Gandhi and Phule, his struggles, and much more.

You have done theatre, but when did you actually realise you wanted to make a career in acting?

Frankly speaking, I don’t remember any one incident or time when I decided to be an actor. But what I recollect is that I started performing on stage in my early years of school, like other kids, in annual functions, competitions and assemblies. I remember I was in the fourth standard when I stepped on the stage for the first time. I felt that magic of being on stage, sharing what was on my mind and people reacting to it in the way I wanted them to react. What I liked the most was the process of telling stories. I constantly kept performing on stage in inter school or inter city competitions in Surat. I came to Mumbai in 2004 and started performing in professional Gujarati theatre, did some experimental plays in Hindi and English. It was because of my pure love for performing art. I did not know anything about becoming a full time actor.

When I came to Mumbai television was very big. So many new shows were being launched then that I thought somewhere I would get my first break, but TV rejected me outright. It may be because of the kind of actor they wanted or the look they wanted, I did not have that tall, fair, good physique. Although I gave many auditions, nothing clicked. As far as films were concerned, I did not know whom to meet. I am an engineer and it helped me sustain in the city.

In 2016, I decided that I wanted to be a full time actor.

What was your family’s reaction when you chose this career instead of engineering?

I think I am the most lucky one to get my family’s support from day one. In fact, my father pushed me for theatre when I did my diploma in engineering and could not continue with theatre. He told me, ‘Surat has a beautiful culture of open theatre competition every year, why don’t you participate in that? He made me join one of the theatre groups there. I guess my father was the biggest support ever. He kept saying that ‘art should be part of your life in any form’.

I come from family of artists, musicians, haveli sangeet artists and teachers. In fact, my father was a dancer himself and he would teach and prepare all his students for various functions and programmes. However, I used to feel that I need to prove it to them before I declared that I wanted to pursue acting as a career and leave my high paying corporate job. Actually, I wanted to prove myself, and the moment I told them that I wanted to act, they were okay with it.

What kind of preparations are you doing for the series on Mahatma Gandhi?

We are already started shooting for the series. As far as preparations are concerned, I have been playing Gandhi on stage for eight years, which has helped me a lot as knowingly or unknowingly, I was preparing for this character for the past eight years. Since it is long format content, there is ample scope for dwelling deep down into the subject and the character. I had to read a lot about it – this entire series is based on three books written by Ramachandra Guha. They are huge books, with each book having nearly 2,000 pages. Mohandas Gandhi’s early life in South Africa is not very known to many people. He had spent almost 33 years in South Africa and had started movements there first, these things are not known to the world. What I am trying to do more is to explore Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi as a person and not as Father of the Nation. Because his human side should come out, is what I personally feel.

Since your earlier collaboration ‘Scam’ with Hansal Mehta has received good response, do you think that people have a lot of expectations from you and him?

I am going to answer this question on Hansal sir’s behalf that we both are super excited to be working on this particular project and to be working with each other. This actually gives us a lot of encouragement and push that people have some expectation from you and are looking forward to this series. When we hear this, it gives us a good feeling, but at the same time it also creates a lot of pressure, which I don’t think is good. As far as I know, Hansal sir is aware of this and he doesn’t take pressure at all. I am also trained in a way not to think much about it, just go and do it. After doing theatre for many years, it helps you absorb pressure. We don’t want to spoil anything by taking too much pressure.

Many known actors have played Gandhiji before, how are you going to deal with the comparisons?

There are a lot of people who have played Gandhi, in fact, every child has also become Gandhi in their school life, so there is no end to comparison. Having said that, I know there is this one international film made on Gandhi, it was the first ever Gandhi we saw. However, our format is different, the storytelling is different. We are going start much earlier, so I don’t know if there is a scope for comparison or not. But people always try to compare what they saw first with and it is part and parcel of this. Our series will show the life of Gandhi which no one has seen before. They will explore Gandhi in a different way is what I can promise.

You have and will be seen portraying some iconic figures on screen. How difficult it is for you to get into the skin of those characters?

Actually I enjoy this process because whenever you are creating a fictional character, you have a lot of freedom, but when you play a real character, there is no freedom. The world knows about these characters, their life, major incidents, and high points in their lives. I had said the same thing during ‘Scam’ also, that what I try to explore is the mindset of that character. I am sure Kasturba also did not know what Gandhi was thinking that time. I think that particular zone is untapped and it is open for interpretation. That is where I try to put myself in, think about those incidents, circumstances, situations and create those emotions. It is like an experiment. Our effort here is to create the human side of Gandhi and show it to the world that he was one of us. Whatever kind of thought process he had, the life he led and the sacrifices that he made him Mahatma. I have done that on the stage, but when you see it on the screen it is different. I did ‘Phule’ after ‘Scam’ last year, this is going to be my third biopic.

You have been working in the Gujarati industry for quite some time now, what kind of changes have you seen and what kind of changes do they need to make?

Changes are steady, but they are pretty slow. I actually expect a lot of things to happen at a faster pace in the Gujarati industry and film board. I started from there, so I have a soft corner for Gujarati theatre and films. I expect it to thrive like any other regional cinema, we have a long way to go right now – there are a lot of things to be changed and improved, a lot of new stories should come out. People have to be fearless in creating films, the most important thing is that budget should not be a constraint for better storytelling.

You had your share of struggle in the industry, so do you feel you have got your due credit now?

Yes, it is absolutely satisfactory. It is a place where any actor would want to be – when people think about you when they write a script. You don’t have to go and tell them that I can act. They already have that faith in you and let you explore the character the way you want to. It is the freedom that actors want. When you come out of that pressure of performance, then you can try and do something new. Till now, what used to happen with every meeting, pitch, and audition was that people were constantly guessing whether he will be able to do it or not. Things would stop there, but now people think that I can do that for sure. People have confidence in me, and it gives a chance for me to shine as an actor. This is a golden phase of my life!

Could you tell us more about your film ‘Phule’? What kind of research have you done or it?

Whatever little we studied in our school time about Jyotiba Phule is right. When this film came to me, I read about him, in fact, Anant Mahadevan sir, who has written the script and directed it, had a lot of material. I went to a couple of places in Pune, where he started his first school, which has been broken down as it was in a dilapidated condition. Phule was among the first social reformists in India, who fought against untouchability and the caste system, worked towards educating women, and he was also a businessman. How he got the surname Phule is also going to be explained in the story. We have finished shooting for the film and the post production is also about to get over. The release date will be announced soon.

How was your experience of doing comedy in ‘Madgaon Express’?

Comedy is one of my favourite genres, but it is not easy to achieve in the current times. We are living in the world of Reels, where the audience’s attention is a few seconds. Hence, capturing the audience’s attention for a couple of hours and making them watch something is not easy, and that too comedy. All digital creators are comedians these days, they have their own style of humour. Finding a place in that crowd and presenting a new thing is a difficult task. But Kunal Kemmu is brilliant with comedy and humour when it comes to performance, and this time he has aced it in writing and direction as well. Whatever experience he has in comedy, he has squeezed that in this film. The script is brilliantly written point by point, and the editing is also done properly which is required for this script. I have not done comedy on screen, though I have done that in the theatre. I wanted to experiment as it is one of the best tools to reach the masses. I was waiting for something good to come, and this is the right story, I think.

Do you plan to get into direction or production in the future?

Production and direction is a natural progression in our career. I am open for everything, but have not decided when and how it will happen. I have directed a play and I am planning to do more. As far as films are concerned, I have no idea if some scripts come to mind that compel me to work on it.