Top 91 Quotes & Sayings by Tahir Raj Bhasin

I was an above-average student who excelled in basketball and theatre.

To play the role of a sports champion, I first needed to break my body and become supremely fit to convincingly look like a college athlete. Along with acing sporting disciplines, I also had to balance the emotional graph and light heartedness of a college drama while competing in varying sport! Combining the two drained a lot out of me.

I am the only one in my family to get into acting.

When people see me as Gavaskar on screen, I want them to feel that they are looking at the person that they have known and when I play on screen, it should remind them of how he played.

I have always been extremely health conscious and I have never smoked and don't encourage the habit of smoking.

Actors normally go to the gym to achieve a certain kind of fitness for a role but when you start playing a sport, then you realise that being athletically fit is a very different kind of fitness.

There's so much information out there. There are written biographies of Gavaskar and Kapil Dev, there are interviews, and we have had the benefit of meeting these players. There's a physical and psychological aspect, and combining these two is what will help '83' connect with the millenials and cricket lovers.

My mother worked for Confederation of Indian Industry, and Aptech Computers.

Internationally if you see, 'Narcos' and 'House of Cards' are all very dark shows with very dark characters. The audience may hate the character but they will love the actor.

As long as the actor is able to maintain an emotional relatability with the audience, he or she will be loved by them.

My focus are only films. There is something special about films as when it is being played in a dark theatre, the audience is watching only you. Whereas in TV there are a lot distraction.

My father was in the Air Force, so I travelled all over India. I was born in Delhi.

It is every actor's dream to work at YRF and I feel very fortunate to be given this opportunity.

When 'Mardaani' came out, one of the great compliments was that we hated the character but we loved the guy. So that was a great compliment to get, especially from female fans.

My first film was very static.

I have been part of really good projects which I'm extremely proud of and 'Chhichhore' will stand tall among my body of work. This is my first Rs 100 crore film and I know I will cherish this moment always.

I look forward to pushing the boundaries of my craft and taking new chances.

I get the feeling that audiences have become mature and they understand that not every character is in black or white. There can be grey shades to it.

My interest is to do interesting lead parts, to tell different stories and to surprise the audience. But as they say in Mumbai, everything is pre-written and it chooses you.

Every time a medal is won on the national or international platform, our country really enjoys winners but we don't appreciate the effort that goes into creating winners.

I want to explore diverse genres.

I think as an actor, you have to make yourself vulnerable to emotions.

I look forward to parts that have a dimension or depth to them. This makes it interesting for me to do and the audience to watch. Whether he's a chocolate boy die hard romantic or a gangster with swag, every good has a little bad and every bad has a little good in them.

As an actor, you want convince the audience that you can do different things. So, if I have to run in slow motion, I am more than happy to romance.

I virtually grew up at Air Force bases, and when I was younger, I'd dream of wearing a uniform like my father and grandfather. But when I turned 10, I felt theatre and acting were my calling.

Derek, my character, in 'Chhichhore' is actually based on the director's real life senior in engineering college and I had no clue about it till he took me to Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.

My only criteria while selecting roles is that it should be a lead part in an interesting story where the character has depth and layers.

How you carry yourself is how people perceive you.

When you are doing a film about real people, you don't have a lot of manoeuvrability when it comes to how much you can add by way of imagination. You have to replicate what they were like. What you can add to it is your version of it.

I would prefer to not talk about films I have not been a part of.

As an actor, 'Chhichhore' has been one of the most creatively fulfilling projects and I thank my director Nitesh Tiwari for making me a part of his vision.

I feel it has become increasingly competitive. There are some insane cut-offs to get into a lot of colleges.

Actually two films is too short a time for an actor to get typecast.

It is important to experience everything. If you haven't travelled in life, if you haven't had friends, if you haven't been a Chhichhora, then you haven't done anything in life.

We grew up climbing trees, playing outdoors and cycling.

There is enough work for everyone. So there is no fear when I look at other people doing well. But it makes you realise that its important to ensure that you keep your quality up.

I believe short films are more organic. It's almost like doing theatre. It just takes few takes.

Film is a medium where the audience gives you 100 per cent.

There isn't that big a vibe around Diwali in Mumbai. Over there its Ganpati Visarjan, which is quite huge.

I have always believed that the choice of your second film is as important as you first film.

In real life I'm shy sometimes, sometimes I'm romantic, sometimes I can be funny, so it's great to be doing different kinds of parts that expose your personality.

I don't think there are any negative roles anymore. I think we can aptly put such characters under 'anti-hero' tag.

In 'Chhichhore,' I play the most layered and fun character.

When you play an anti-hero, it is a task to make people empathise with your character.

Real life is never black and white why must the movies be?

On the sets of the movie 'Manto,' I found that one of the challenges of embodying real-life stories is the mixed medium of facts and imagination, and how one's collage of experiences colour ones representation on celluloid.

I internalise every role that I do and my creative process sees me immerse myself with the setting and the character that I have at hand.

What's challenging is to surprise the audience.

I spend Diwali in Delhi because it's such a big festival.

It's a big responsibility to play an icon like Sunil Gavaskar.

I think what working in a short film online is that the response from the audience is immediate whether your short film or web-series works or not, it is immediate. You can see comments and you can also see how many people have viewed it.

I like to spend time with senior actors before going on set to break the ice. On set, I just look at them as co-actors.

As actors, that has been challenging for us to pick up the nuances of the living legends we are playing.

I think an excess of anything is bad, be it mobile phones, social media, private tuitions or watching television.

Censorship is a really big deal, but online you don't have anything. You have slightly more freedom.

It's always interesting exploring something that has dimensions and layers to it.

I am a huge optimist.

There is something challenging in shooting something in just one day and there is freedom knowing there is going to be no censorship.

Chhichhore' is the toughest film that I have done.

I am not a big fan of going to malls. I am pretty old-fashioned that way.