Chunky Pandey's experience with mighty shades of grey

Mumbai: Actor Chunky Pandey says essaying a grey character was a big challenge for him, and made him short-tempered and irritable.

The actor has essayed negative roles in films like last year's "Saaho" and the 2017 film, "Begum Jaan". He played Devraj in the Prabhas-starrer "Saaho", a thriller about power struggle among crime lords.

"In ‘Saaho', I play a grey character, someone who is complex from within. Devraj is someone who has grown cold over time, to the extent that people might describe him as someone who has died a hundred times," Chunky said.

"This was one of the few times where I stepped away from the jovial and happy go lucky characters and took up a negative role. It was a challenge because I literally had to break through my established character and needed to show Devraj's coldness in my eyes," he added.

Explaining his point, he said: "Most of the times I used to prefer staying alone and use to take the liberty of staying deeply rooted in my character's personality off screen as well which eventually resulted in me being short-tempered and irritable most of the time which was quite unlike me. It was a different yet a good learning experience altogether. And, I feel it just wasn't only my effort but I'd like to think of it as a team effort. Hope the audience also enjoys watching ‘Saaho' on Zee Cinema as much as we enjoyed working on it."

"Saaho" also featured Prabhas, Shraddha Kapoor, Neil Nitin Mukesh and Jackie Shroff.

Opening up about the movie, Shraddha said: "‘Saaho' is my biggest grosser till date and I am cherishing every bit of it. I feel like I am on top of the world as all our hard work paid off. My experience working with the team ‘Saaho' was great and also a memorable one. It was an honour for me to work in this film as it was my first multilingual film and I am glad I was chosen for it. I am really excited about how it's going to reach a larger audience through the world television premiere."

The film airs on January 26 on Zee Cinema.