Pratik Gandhi: Engineer cum salesman turned actor, and star of Scam 1992

Since being released a week back, streaming platform SonyLIV's Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story has been receiving rave reviews for its intriguing storyline and impressive acting chops of the cast.

Director Hansal Mehta directed the ten-episode series that is adapted from Sucheta Dalal and Debashish Basu's book The Scam: Who Won, Who Lost, Who Got Away, reports GQ India.

The story traces the journey of stockbroker Harshad Mehta, his rise and fall, and his role in the 1992 Indian stock market scam that shook the nation to its core. The series features actors such as Satish Kaushik, Pratik Gandhi, Shreya Dhanwanthary, Nikhil Dwivedi and Ananth Narayan Mahadevan among others.

While each actor played a part in the success of the series that currently enjoys a rating of 9.6 on IMDb, it has been Pratik Gandhi's phenomenal portrayal of Harshad Mehta that has earned him a special attention and praises from the netizens and critics.

Hailing from Surat, Pratik Gandhi started his acting journey with theatre and was associated with the Gujarati theatre scene from 2004, until his debut in the Indian film industry with Bey Yaar in 2014. Before that, he also worked in an English movie called Yours Emotionally. Some of his notable works in theatre are Mohan No Masalo, Hu Chandrakant Bakshi to name a few.  

Engineer cum salesman turned actor

Before finding his calling in acting, Pratik Gandhi was an engineer who had also worked as a salesperson for some time. Pratik Gandhi got introduced to the world of theatre when he was in school. However, he later took up engineering, completed his education and moved to Mumbai following his "'multiple passion disorder' for plays, films and engineering and management."

Surviving in Mumbai by acting in theatres alone wasn't easy, so he took up a job as an engineer and used to juggle between the two. 

In an interview with film critic and journalist Subhash K Jha, Pratik Gandhi said: "Between 2004 and 2016 I was juggling among engineering, theatre and live shows."

However, post the success of his initial movies he decided to leave engineering.

"I did my early films by taking leave from my engineering job, then came a time when I had to choose between engineering and acting. I sat down with my family and discussed it with them. In August 2016 I left my engineering job and became a full-time actor."

An actor with aspirations

Pratik Gandhi has become a prominent name in the Gujarati film and theatre industry and worked in numerous movies including the National award-winning film Wrong Side Raju and Ventilator and Bollywood movies such as Mitron and LoveYatri.

While his latest outing with Hansal Mehta has been a success, there are a lot of mainstream directors he wishes to work with. He told Mashable that he wants to work with the likes of Rajkumar Hirani, Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Anurag Basu.