Actor Pratik Gandhi’s life changed last year, after his break through performance in Hansal Mehta’s ‘Scam: 1992’, in which he played the tole of the late stock broker, Harshad Mehta. So much so, that Pratik, himself divided his career as “Pre Scam and Post Scam eras”.
“Pre ‘Scam’ era, I could go out with my daughter in the evening and just go out for a walk, or do things like buying vegetables or other things for the home. But now, in the post ‘Scam’ era, if I have to do something like that, I have to think about it many times now,” he laughs.
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But jokes apart, Gandhi, acknowledges that the web series, has made the audiences put “more faith” in him as an actor. “Even the makers now trust me and know that I can do the job. I had no clue that this will ever happen. This is a dream for any actor,” explains Prateek, all set to make his Bollywood debut now, with the film ‘Bhavai’, which releases on October 1.
Just like ‘Scam: 1992’, Pratik’s process to prepare for the role was simple. “Building an emotional arc for the character, so that the audience don’t get the feeling of a jerk in between different scenes,” he says.
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The simple process, Pratik points out, however took a lot of time before he could get to a place where he could “present my character in different ways for the maker”. Much of that credit goes to his work as a theatre actor.
“I owe my entire to theatre. Simply because, I got so many chances to practice. Playing the same character for days, I could understand and practice on how to build that emotional arc. It has taken years to be able to do that process in a matter of five minutes now," he says.
"Everytime I read a script now, I am able to imagine my character in multiple ways, which I present to the director or the writer, and we take it on from there,” he signs off.
