‘I see myself in every character that I play’

Actor Rohit Pathak, known for his films including Theeran Adhigaram Ondhuru, and Seetimaar, gets candid in an exclusive interview with The Pioneer, about his recent flick Dharavi Bank, working with Suniel Shetty, his upcoming films with the biggies of the south, and much more.

Tejal Sinha

Dharavi Bank marked the web debut of the OG Suniel Shetty. While the series revolves around the rise of Thalaivan (Sunil Shetty) as the most influential person of Dharavi, one can just not ignore another significant character of Rajan, Thalaivan’s son-in-law (played by Rohit Pathak).

Rohit’s character as we saw is just not of his son-in-law, but also Thalaivan’s right hand. We see Thalaivan and Rajan sharing a very close bond. Getting to share the max screen with Anna, he says, “Since I have been playing the character of Anna’s son-in-law, we had shared maximum screen space together.

However, the number of days of Anna was more but apart from the scenes, when our vanity used to be far away, so there used to be chairs and we used to sit there. The profile that Anna has over the past decades in the industry, he still remains one of the most down-to-earth persons one could ever meet.

There was a time when he was ruling the industry, apart from that he is also a very big businessman,the way he carries himself with ease is just amazing. None would believe that he’s the same person who had ruled in the 90s, it was a very big thing and you get to learn a lot that how can you handle stardom with keeping a low profile.

He is very comfortable with everyone, and I think that is one of the reasons why they call him Anna. It was a memory working with him. There was this advantage that his scenes used to be done as early as possible, and along with him even my scenes used to get completed soon. So even I used to get free soon (he laughs).”

Sharing one of the funny yet memorable moment from their shoot, the Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru actor says, “When we were actually shooting in Dharavi where we had done Anna’s shooting scenes, there was a huge. There’s this place where they used to make these pots, diyas that’s made. The crowd was so much that we could not even find the actors and the other artists. Even the bouncers could not understand whom to save.”

Having been part of films like Bakrid, Seetmaar, Sita, Check, Warrior, Siya and Jannat, among the rest, we asked him if the screen space of his character matters? He says, “Every character for me is very important. I see myself in every role that I play and then with my thoughts and imagination, I try to add colours and lines to it. For instance, a painter draws an art with his imagination, and then adds colours to make it look beautiful and colourful, draws lines so he would know from where to where he will be drawing it and give a shape. Acting is a similar craft, you work with your thoughts and imagination and I try to do it the same way.”

The characters that he plays, most of them, has some pinch of villainous twists. Does he fear being typecasted in a villainous character? He giggles and says, “I’m an actor, an artist. So the way my fans look at my craft, or the shade of my character that they like. I am always happy with that, so nothing fears me at all.”

While many actors these days focus on promoting themselves, that doesn’t seem in his case. He’s always been one of the actors who has focused on his work than the showbiz. To this, the Check actor says, “I never looked at things from this side. I don’t want to be the attraction, and not be attracted toward anything else. Through that, I want to get all the love from my fans and audience.”

On the work front, he has got several big projects coming up in the new year. He will be seen playing a negative lead in Pagglait director Umesh Bisht’s series. Apart from this, he will also play significant characters in Surender Reddy’s Agent, Chiranjeevi, Ravi Teja, and Shruti Haasan’s starrer Waltair Veerayya, Balakrishna’s Veera Simha Reddy, and Kannada film Martin, directed by AP Arjun, which will also feature Dhruva Sarja.

“It feels really good when your hard work pays off and when you see the end product on screen, that happiness cannot be expressed in words. I’ve always got a lot of respect from the south film industry. I’m glad I’ll be working in four languages of the South; Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam,” he signs off.