Jyothi Venkatesh

Even after being in the industry for over three decades and giving some noteworthy performances in movies like “Black Friday”, “No Smoking”, “Gulaal”, “Udaan” and “Hate Story 3”, the versatile Sanjay Gandhi calls himself an actor with limitations. He further says he doesn’t feel shy in accepting things which he cannot perform on-screen. He said, “If someone calls me for a role, I first ask them if I have to dance, or fight or drive, because I can’t do all those things. And I accept it. But if you ask me say a monologue of one hour, I can perform that easily. That’s my strength. I can say that I am actor with limitations. I don’t think there is anything wrong in accepting things I can’t do,” he said.

Sanjay came to Mumbai in 1990; he first became an assistant director then moved on to doing theatres, because that was his passion. However, his struggle began at home.”I did not have my family’s support in the beginning of my career, but my guru Robin Das encouraged me and supported me and  later even my parents had no issues. It was tough to become a good actor then, and it’s still tough. You need a good mentor to tell you the difference between a hero and an actor, once you know the difference and understand the nuances of acting, the struggle post that becomes easy, because you first need to understand what acting is. The struggle in this industry is never-ending, so you need to have patience and keep the passion alive, if you want to people to know you,” he said.

Sanjay is popularly known for his character as Mahendra Pratap Singhania in TV show “Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai”. He says he has no problems with doing TV or films because he wants to do meaningful roles, be it on any platform.  “Anyone who enters the industry wants to be seen in films, but they want meaningful roles, be it on any medium. I did ‘Hate Story 3’, ‘Black Friday’, because the characters were interesting. It affected the storyline in a way. So there is no such line between TV and films, all a film actor wants is to do significant roles in TV. And the same goes for TV actors.

They want to do films, but they just don’t want to just be a part of it, they want their characters to be important,” he said. “Even Amitabh Bachchan sir did a TV show called ‘Yudh’ for Sony. I was also a part of the show and played his brother-in-law. Anil Kapoor too did TV, his show ’24’ was a super hit. The reach of TV is still very high as compared to other platforms, and that’s another reason why many Bollywood actors want to do films,” he concludes. On the work front, Sanjay recently made his directorial debut with short film “Yaad”, which was released on Hungama Play and MX Player.