Chandan Roy Sanyal on 20 years in films: There was no backup plan, just wanted to earn bread & butter

“I didn’t get into acting to become a movie star or a famous name,” clarifies Chandan Roy Sanyalm, as he reflects on his journey of two decades in the Hindi film industry. The actor known for Kaminey (2009) and Jab Harry Met Sejal (2017) says initially it was all just about staying afloat.

“There was no source of income, whatever you could, you had to. Acting came later. To stay afloat, keep a shelter over my head and food on my plate, the basic requirements. It was very simple,” he admits.

The 41-year-old recently took to Instagram and gave a brief about his struggle until now.

“My first job in films was playing some bit roles as extras. I played some parts in films here and there, got an assistant director’s role. In some of them, I was required to come, leave the drink on the table and go. That’s how it started,” he recalls.

Sanyal was also doing theatre on the side, and did a lot of productions. “But I didn’t get a chance to be on stage. The first two years I doing out and out backstage production work,” he tells us.

And there was no back up plan just in case acting didn’t work out. Sanyal was set to get into IIT or IIM and do “normal stuff”, as he puts it, “When I got into theatre, it gave me a lot of happiness and satisfaction. I got into acting for that.”

Sanyal maintains that films were never his end goal and his reason to become an actor was rather very clear in his head.

“It made me a better person. Eventually, I started doing films. When I started acting, it went from being a serious hobby to my passion. This is what I wanted to do. There were no back up plans, I just wanted to do and act enough to earn my bread and butter,” says Sanyal, who was recently seen in the web anthology Ray.