At IFP Season 16, actor Pratik Gandhi joined veteran actor Ratna Pathak Shah for The Actor at Work, an unfiltered conversation about his craft, the experiences that shaped him as an actor, and the discipline behind effortless performances. Reflecting on his journey from engineering and corporate life to the stage and ultimately the screen, Gandhi spoke about why his breakthrough with Scam 1992 came at the right time, why he refuses to settle for mediocrity, and why actors should see one another as collaborators rather than competitors.
Gandhi traced his love for performing back to a school skit that introduced him to the magic of connecting with an audience. “What stayed with me was the magic. That I did not ask anyone to clap at that point, but they clapped. I didn’t know that people would get this joke and they might laugh, but they laughed at the same point where I thought they would.” That early experience taught him a lesson he continues to carry into his work. “So what I understood without going to any school is that I have to feel first for my audience to feel.”
His journey beyond theatre was equally unconventional. Alongside working as an engineer and spending nine years in the corporate world, Gandhi even started a tank-cleaning company, an experience he says taught him the value of learning by doing. Recalling how those varied experiences informed his performances, he said, “The fun part of it is that I got to do it first-hand myself. There is nowhere in the world that I could have actually gone and trained for anything of this sort.” He also credited everyday encounters with expanding his understanding of people, calling travelling on Mumbai’s local trains “the best teaching experience that you get.”
Looking back at the years he spent waiting for his big break, Gandhi admitted that the success of Scam 1992 changed how he viewed the long journey that preceded it. “So jab tak Scam aaya tab tak mujhe lagta tha ki yaar ab kya 40 saal ke ho rahe hain, kab aayega mauka. Par Scam aane ke baad aaisa laga ki sahi hua yeh mauka 40 saal pe aaya, kyunki tab tak main taiyari kar raha tha. Toh agar yeh jaldi aa jata, 25 ya 28 saal mein, toh main utna taiyar nahi hota. I would have wasted that opportunity.”
Speaking about sharing screen space with his wife Bhamini for the first time in Hansal Mehta’s Gandhi, he reflected on a collaboration they had long hoped for. “Bhamini and I, we always wanted to work together on stage and on screen. Stage pe toh we could work together with Sir Sir Sarla. And Gandhi is our first-ever screen experience together. I am a fan of Bhamini’s work since I’ve seen her on stage long back. Matlab humari love story mein toh ulta hua tha. Main stage pe tha, woh audience mein thi, and I thought I want to know this girl, and I chased her. But then I watched her also perform on stage. So this is the best experience of our lives when we could work together.”
The conversation also turned to the tendency to view actors as competitors, with both performers arguing that acting is fundamentally collaborative. Gandhi questioned the idea of rivalry between actors, saying, “Mujhe yeh nahi samajh mein aata ki do actors competition kaise ho sakte hain. Do runner agar hain toh samajh mein aata hai ki unko same cheez achieve karni hai.” Shah echoed his view, adding, “If I am good and you are good, then we complement each other, na? We feed off each other. We are not in a competition. We are working, we are collaborators. As actors, we are always collaborating with each other. We are not working against each other.”
On the craft itself, Gandhi highlighted the importance of restraint. Having seen how the desire to win over an audience can lead an actor to overdo a performance, he said, “Less is more is the key for everything. For everything. An actor should know when to stop and let the audience engage.” Shah, who spoke about the importance of restraint and collaboration throughout the session, also playfully described Gandhi as a person with “multiple passion disorder”, a nod to the many pursuits he has embraced over the years. Reinforcing the point with her husband and legendary actor Naseeruddin Shah’s observation, Shah highlighted, “In fact, there is a very interesting thing that Naseer often points out. Jab buri acting hoti hai na, toh film wale kehte hain yeh bada theatrical kar raha hai. Aur theatre wale kehte hain yeh bada filmy kar raha hai. Basically the absolute definition is bad acting kar raha hai.”
From a 50-hour filmmaking challenge that began in 2011 to a multidisciplinary creative platform bringing creators from across the world together, IFP brings the 16th season with the same idea at its heart: make something, put it out into the world, and see where it takes you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=RtToJsBhYBatUrym&v=mOuYNSdhjHA&feature=youtu.be
