Samarth Shandilya: Playing lead on TV gave me mass reach

Actor Samarth Shandilya believes that writing and directing early in his career helped him understand the filmmaking process better. He has played multiple roles on the sets of his short films, including that of a spot boy, and believes that actors should not be tied down to one platform. Shandilya was recently seen in the OTT series Rana Naidu and is eagerly waiting for his next production, a short film called Medic, to release.

Actor Samarth Shandilya feels getting into writing and direction early in his acting career has helped him learn the nuances of filmmaking better.

Samarth Shandilya

“When you go behind the camera you realise what this unique craft is all about. Also, after writing screenplay and dialogues for a film like Victor, along with producing my first short film Lappad, I have understood how taxing the job of a film maker is. For my short films, I have played multiple roles on the sets including that of a spot boy. In fact, now I know keeping things within a budget is a tough job. That’s how you learn and comprehend the process and see that it gets a timely release,” says Shandilya.

On how it all started, the multi-tasking actor says, “During the lockdown, as shootings were on hold, I started looking beyond acting and that’s how writing happened. It was then that I wrote my first series Who’s Your Daddy 2 followed by my foray into directing music videos.”

Shandilya has been working across mediums and feels actors should not be tied down to one platform. “The times are changing; we are not living in the era where artistes were tagged to a certain medium. It’s a creative field, you never know what might click for you – it can be a TV show or even a short film for that matter. Playing lead in Perfect Pati on a small screen gave that mass reach and then the web helped me reach the younger audience,” says the Triple X and Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya actor.