Looking at Vikkas Manaktala’s career-graph, it seems incredible that he has been in the field for one year short of two decades! It was in 2006 that he portrayed cadet Amardeep Huda in the SAB TV show, Left Right Left. His very sparse roster of characters includes the mad and internally aggressive Veer Pratap in Ghulaam, King Gangadhar Rao of Jhansi in Jhansi Ki Rani and Lord Shiva in Namah.
Vikkas Manaktala on his web debut with Special Ops 2: “Neeraj Pandey ji kamaal ke filmmaker hain, the show has opened doors for me”
He has just left another mark in the role of Abhay Singh in Neeraj Pandey’s Special Ops 2. As the angry young man out for revenge on a personal basis until reined in by his boss, Vikkas has essayed yet another shade in his brief but rather impressive list.
Excerpts from the interview:
The first and obvious question: Your career shows more gaps or breaks than work. Seven TV serials and one reality show besides—now—one web series. In 19 years. Gaps like two, three or five years! Why on earth is that?
It’s a personal choice. My approach to work is different. I want my choices to allow me to grow. I was lucky with my debut in Left Right Left and my character of cadet Amardeep Huda was so beautifully loved and appreciated that 19 years later, I still get messages and wishes. That’s the love, the fan base I have earned.
I came into the industry to become a better artiste, and over here, if something or some character works, makers want to cash in with similar stuff, which is not wrong from their point of view. I was inundated with several offers from TV to films in the same space. But I was looking for creative satisfaction, so I turned them all down. Instead, I chose to work on stories, recces and so on that enriched me as artiste and human being and allowed me to see the hard work that goes in them. Then Ghulaam came to me and I loved my character, but after that I got offers for many ‘negative’ characters. I wanted to work on a positive character!
And then came Jhansi Ki Rani?
Yes, as Rani Laxmibai’s husband. And then Lord Shiva in Namah.
And now your OTT debut, Special Ops 2, with a director I am told was your long-standing dream-come-true!
Yes! Neeraj (Pandey)-ji kamaal ke filmmaker hain! The show has opened doors for me, and some conversations are now going on about work with others. For an artiste, the love of an audience is the highest reward, and I hope I keep getting that love and good work.
Which other directors are in your list of dream directors now?
Oh, so many! (Rattles off over a dozen names). But roles permitting, I would like to work with even international names!
How do you approach your roles?
I like to understand both the physical and mental aspects of my characters, which go hand-in-hand. Understanding one makes the other clearer. And helps you push yourself further.
This time, your character in a single series was directed by both Neeraj Pandey and co-director Shivam Nair. How was it as an actor to have two individuals working on Abhay?
From them to the actors, the writers and technicians and even to the spot-boys, the full team of the series for me was a kamaal ki cheez, as everyone was in so much sync with each other! When everyone has one goal—that’s when magic happens! As the creative forces, Neeraj-ji and Shivam-ji’s understanding and point of view is too deep, and when an actor too goes in-depth, the flow is easy.
Which would be your dream role next?
I think that of a lover-boy. I want to do totally diverse work and not repeat myself.
At this point, I would like to ask a twisted question: Ashok Kumar, Pran, Balraj Sahni and some other of the greatest actors would do many similar roles and yet inject different nuances in them and thus grew and became legends. How do you plan to grow when you sit without work in the quest for something different?
They are all institutes, but if I work like them, I will be aping them. Let me explain. Everyone has his own perspective. The process of every artiste is different, and it is time and circumstances that help make everyone’s decision. I now plan to work without gaps. Whatever I have learnt, it is my belief that my hunger keeps me alive. And negative things like insecurity never lead to success.
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