On a nice Friday afternoon, just one week after the release of Rohit Shetty’s Circus, the last big Bollywood movie of 2022, actor Sanjay Mishra got a phone call. His face lights up when he reads it. his eyes are fine. and shut up for a while. “The true hero of the circus is Sanjay Mishra, not Ranveer Singh,” is an article on a popular website.
For someone who has spent more than half of his nearly 30-year career graduating from supporting roles, this is a huge deal. It surpassed the energy of the effervescent Ranveer Singh who didn’t heat up despite playing the part. Played by Mishra, the character of Rai Bahadur is wealthy, flamboyant, motormouth, and stands out as the only promising comic act in the Circus, a remake of Angour (1982) based on William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors. was
In stark contrast to Rai Bahadur, the film released just two weeks before Cirkus and in which Mishra played the lead role alongside Neena Gupta is Shambhunath Mishra, a retired schoolteacher from Vadh. Mishra uses his casual, unpretentious naturalness to lead the audience through an emotional upheaval that transforms a soft-spoken teacher into a cold-blooded killer.
It is in this realm, from comic quirkiness to the anxieties of an aging father, that Mishra thrives as an actor. “The key is to never offer a moment of falsehood,” he says, taking a cigarette out of its decorative case. “Being immersed in a character until I am no longer me. I am just a manifestation of my character. The camera is nobody’s friend, so its honesty comes out on screen. Unknowingly summoning fakes.” It will end.”
As the conversation progresses, so does the puff. We sit on mattresses on the floor within his minimal yet beautifully finished studio space in Versova, Mumbai. This space overlooks the calm and meditative swells of the Arabian Sea. “Artists have to stay in aesthetic places,” he says. “I’m very creative when it comes to cooking meals and designing spaces. I’m here reading scripts and channeling my energy.”
Mishra, 59, entered the industry in 1991, when Shah Rukh Khan was starring in the TV series The Idiot, and Salman Khan was on the rise with the evergreen film Main Pial Kiya (1989). I was riding Unlike Khan, who is only two years younger than her, Mishra has just tasted her success.
Producers are now willing to bet money on films directed by Mishra. “That’s happening now,” says Ankur Garg, who produced Vadh. “This is the age of method actors who are literally characters and know how to bring stories to life on screen.”
And playing the character has always excited Mishra, including her village theater days in Darbhanga, Bihar, school and family gatherings, drama schools and cinema plays. He never “fits the definition of the typical Bollywood hero”. But I don’t want to play the hero,” he says. “I am here to play the character that the whole movie is based on. Characters are carved over time, even turning into memes (“Dhondu, just chill” from Shetty’s All The Best).
That doesn’t mean he’s picky when it comes to roles. “I simply kept doing whatever I got. I had no choice,” he says. “Because it was also important for me to sustain myself financially here in Bombay.
Mishra has lost count of the number of movies he has ever done, just as he has lost count of how many times he has failed in a particular class. According to him, his only true education took place at the National Theater School, where he met contemporaries such as Irrfan He Khan, Kumud He Mishra, Saurab Shukla.
In addition to his own talent and luck, Mishra agrees that a lot of credit goes to the director and storyteller who gave him the part. When his best friend Tigmansh Dulia played a blind role in Mishra’s Charas (2004), he said he was the only one to play a blind role in a Hindi film so far. (Remember Itna sannata kyun hain bhai?). “So he wanted me to influence him with something as simple as that,” he says Mishra.
It was a long journey from being called ‘Sanjay’ to becoming ‘Lord Sanjay’. “Now on set, I’m not told to memorize dialogue,” he says. “I think that was the biggest change, and we won it. Film buff Kalpana Iyer says the only thing that ties all his films together is “typically the local Bihari dialect, which gives his characters flavor and context.” “We are giving Just google my name,” he recalls. “My face was worth it, but now people know me by my name as well.”
Mishra speaks Hindi with lively humor. His friendliness also translates on set. Once the shoot was ready, Mishra cooked okra while listening to Raag Malhah and lit a few sticks of incense to “set the mood”.
And he “vibes” to the script by listening to the director’s narration rather than reading it. “I’d love to see the film unfold through the director’s eyes,” says Mishra. “If the director convinces me, I will participate.”
