Pankaj Tripathi Spills the Beans on ‘Guruji’ From Sacred Games S2

After a small appearance in the first season of Sacred Games, Pankaj Tripathi will be seen in a full-fledged role as the cunning Guruji in season 2. He spoke to The Quint about his role, why he doesn’t watch anything on OTT platforms and his social media usage. Here are excerpts:

From the episodes that I have seen of ‘Sacred Games’, your character Guruji is a very evil guy, you don’t really know but somewhere you do. It’s like an undercurrent.

You can’t really decide that in three episodes, it may not be there at all. This is what the hallmark of great writing is, that you can’t see any character as black or white.

But in the first season you shot for only a day for the show because it was a very small part. So did you know that this was going to be extended into the second?

Yes, yes. Varun (Grover) had told me the story earlier and said we would develop this character. In Season 1 there are a lot of questions in the audience’s mind which will be answered in Season 2.

So, I read an interview of yours where you’ve said that you don’t really watch shows on Netflix or Amazon. So then what do you watch then for, generally?

Nothing for the past two years. I haven’t watched anything because I’ve barely had time. I’ve been shooting 365 days a year, so time is scarce.

But do you feel that now you’re getting some really high quality work, you will reduce the amount of work you do and become more selective? Because if you are working so much are you finding everything challenging?

No, no. I feel like I will burn out. I was also thinking about this, that why am I doing this? What you’ve just asked I was thinking about a month ago. Then I realised that for fourteen-fifteen years in order to get work I really ran around a lot. So, now that work is coming I don’t feel like saying no. When there’s a drought in your village or city, and suddenly there’s a flood for the first week you feel good.

So, at least now there is water, but the damage from a flood is also as much as a drought. Now I’m a little aware of it and feel that let’s be a little relaxed.

Video Editor: Ashish MacCune