Pankaj Tripathi on nepotism: ‘Audience is very smart, they know who is talented and who is not’

Actor Pankaj Tripathi is undoubtedly one of the most exciting actors in Bollywood today. With a range as vast as his - his rise was inevitable. He has worked in hard-hitting Netflix drama such as Sacred Games, films such as Newton to doing light-hearted films like Bareilly Ki Barfi. The actor has single-handedly made supporting roles mainstream.

The actor says that while he did see such experiences in the industry, his own story has been different. "Nepotism have never really bothered me in any way. I have been busy working on my craft. People might think I am lying when I say that I have never felt uncomfortable in the industry. But this journey and experience have been mine so I only can say how it was so far. My truth is that I have had my share of struggles. I have worked immensely hard to bag roles in films. I have struggled for eight long years before people started recognizing me," he said in a new interview.

"Although I have never had any such experiences, I would not deny that I have seen these things happening in the industry with others. Star kids do get opportunities quicker than others because they belong to a certain family. I never got opportunities so easily. However, nobody stopped me too. No matter if you become a recognised actor after eight years of struggle or just a mere eight days if you do not have the talent; you will not survive in this industry. The audience is very smart. They know who is talented and who is not," he told Times of India in the interview.

Pankaj hails from a rather humble background in Bihar. While he has been doing small roles for a while, his first brush with recognition came in Anurag Kashyap's Gangs of Wasseypur, where he played Sultan Qureshi. However, after a string of successful roles in films like Fukrey (2013, Masaan (2015), Bareilly Ki Barfi (2017), Newton (2017) and Stree (2018), there has been no looking back.