Actor Anuup Sonii is grateful that he has got a chance to act in all mediums — theatre, television, films and the web. But he rues that a hierarchy still exists between TV and films, and people differentiate between actors as “yeh toh film/ TV ka actor hai”.
He explains his point saying, “Yeh bilkul hota hai, bauhaut zyaada. I always tell people to not judge an actor by which medium he has come from, or what medium he or she is known for, but please judge them by their talent.”
The 45-year-old, who has been a part of films such as Fiza (2000), and Prashthaanam (2019), adds, “Just because you have worked in films, it doesn’t mean that you are a great actor, and neither does working in television mean that someone is not a good actor. It’s just a platform. I have done everything. If you want to judge me, say ‘Anuup Sonii is a good or bad actor’ and not whether I am a TV or theatre actor. I am not the face of any platform.”
In a career spanning two decades, has Sonii ever found it difficult in overcoming this distinction? He confesses that though no one has said it to his face, people might have said it behind his back that he’s a TV actor, hence overexposed.
{{/usCountry}}In a career spanning two decades, has Sonii ever found it difficult in overcoming this distinction? He confesses that though no one has said it to his face, people might have said it behind his back that he’s a TV actor, hence overexposed.
{{/usCountry}}“It takes time in overcoming it, stigma hai. It hasn’t happened that much with me. 20-22 years back, there were no daily soaps, and the medium of TV wasn’t so big, and even the content was different then. After 2000, my identity is not just that of a TV actor, but that of an actor. I am a National School of drama pass out, even then I had to face this,” says the National School of drama alumnus.
The TV show Crime Patrol, which gave him a lot of fame among the masses, also led to him being stereotyped.
“In fact, a lot of people said ‘Aapka Crime Patrol ka image hai, it’s very strong’. I said ‘I am an actor, I will do any role, if I don’t do good work, throw me out. Lekin aap image-image kya kar rahe ho?’ TV karna aisa ho gaya hai jaise koi chhota-mota kaam kar rahe hain. That hierarchy is very much there. I never tried to fight this, one has to work to negate it,” asserts Sonii.
Adding that he is grateful to the kind of directors he’s getting to work with, the actor names Ali Abbas Zafar, Mahesh Manjrekar, Atul Sabharwal, and Neeraj Pandey with whom he did the recent short film Relationship Manager. “I had to do a lot of pushing for myself. They never made me feel that I work on television,” he concludes.
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