Glad, people accepted me in different genres
Pratik Gandhi’s formula for success is simple: “I am not competing with anybody. I need to constantly push myself and my boundaries to create my place, and continue to be as fearless as I have been,” says the 44-year-old actor.
Letting go of a thriving corporate job to try to make a career in acting was the biggest trial by fire in his life, he says. “It wasn’t easy to discard a full-time job to become a full-time actor. It took me a while to make this decision. It wasn’t that I liked one profession over the other, I loved both. But there came a point in 2016 when I had to decide on one or the other, because I was losing out on opportunities in my job, as well as in Gujarati films. Hindi was not even on my radar,” he shares, adding, “My family told me to do whatever makes me happy.”
Pratik, who won acclaim for his performance in Rahul Dholakia’s action thriller Agni, which brings to life the struggles and strife of firefighters, confesses that he was ashamed of how little he knew about them. “We never pay attention to their life. As an engineer, I set up cement plants and interacted with various people, but I never had any insights into their lives. The film gave me that perspective,” he says.
The actor broke new ground in his career with his raw and real portrayal of stock broker Harshad Mehta in Hansal Mehra’s Scam 1992. 2024 is a landmark year for him. Besides completing a decade in the industry, he came up with three back-to-back hits - the rom-com Do Aur Do Pyaar, Madgaon Express and Agni. His recent body of work proves his versatility as a performer. “It has been a phenomenal experience for me because I was striving to make every character different from the other. Post Scam 1992, I was perceived as a serious actor, and I am glad people have accepted me in different worlds and genres.”
Asserting that surviving in the film industry is a constantly evolving process, he says, “You can’t bank on the success of one project. You have to keep reinventing yourself and look for new opportunities. There is no standard route. Your craft has to be compelling enough that people have reasons to watch and cast you. I credit the audience for being accepting of new actors and talent. It is the makers who need to let go of their fears, because the viewer is discerning enough.”
Has his success made it easier to navigate the slippery slope of Bollywood? “The struggle will always be there, it never ends. But yes, success helps bring in some kind of star factor, though not power,” he says. “People come with expectations, and it is those expectations one needs to keep working on. You need a strong core.”
Pratik and Hansal Mehta come together once again for the screen adaptation of historian Ramachandra Guha’s books Gandhi Before India and Gandhi: The Years that Changed the World. Stepping into the shoes of Bapu can be a daunting task, but Pratik says he was struck by his humanness. “It is amazing how Gandhiji himself has chronicled his strengths and weaknesses. He didn’t want you to celebrate him, he just emphasised that he was as ordinary as anyone else,” he says.