A man of many talents, but when you ask him to describe himself, he says, ‘Sunil Grover is not a serious entity. If he connects, well and good, if not, it’s not a problem.’ However, if you ask him to talk about his multiple characters, the actor and comedian has a lot to say.
Having been part of Netflix’s The Great Indian Kapil Show, Grover has seriously pulled off many characters funnily — be it Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Ajay Devgn, or even the late Dara Singh.
When asked how he manages to come up with new characters in every episode, the actor jokingly says, “If I tell you this, then you will make a show from it.” He adds, “It’s never my solo decision, there is always a creative team involved. The credit goes to everyone if it works. And if it doesn’t work, then we find someone to blame [laughs]. We all decide what we should do, how we should perform and what goes well with the episode. Sometimes, I am right, sometimes they are.”
(Clockwise) Sunil as Dara Singh; as Ajay Devgn; as Khali
He says it thrills him to get into the mindset of everyday characters. And if it’s fiction, then “it’s beautiful to express the outcome of someone else’s mindset and make it your own”. “It’s like walking with my own travel agency, so I just travel and come back.”
Grover doesn’t consider his journey — and the years he spent doing smaller roles and voice-overs — as struggle. “The journey lends to your creative expression. My creative expression is that I am from a small town, slowly I learnt the ropes of the trade, so I moulded my life that way. I don’t know what struggle is, I’d rather call it an experience. And I believe I am the outcome of my experiences. You will see it in all the work I do,” he shares, adding that while he is unaware of where he wants to reach, he just focuses on “enjoying my journey.”