Divyenndu talks to Aakanksha Naval-Shetye about choosing authenticity and craft over manufactured hype, staying true to his process and playing a cop for the first time in the ZEE5 Global thriller Saali Mohabbat. The actor also reveals why he isn’t bothered being unlucky in love on screen and why he refuses to use PR machinery as crutches to move ahead in the industry!
Mirzapur to Madgaon Express, Pyaar Ka Punchnama to Agni, The Railway Men to Saali Mohabbat and many more amongst them — Divyenndu’s filmography reflects a rare comfort with extremes — from intense, layered drama to sharply-timed relaxed comedy! Whether evoking unease, empathy or laughter, Divyenndu navigates drama and comedy with equal ease. The acclaim he garners with each outing proves that versatility isn’t about tapping the range for effect, but about honesty in performance.
Choosing to keep away from ‘manufactured hype’, for Divyenndu the work has always mattered more than the noise around it. Picking projects only when they genuinely excite him, his acting process is steeped in the three constants – discipline, patience, and preparation – that he attributes to being trained in theatre and film school.
Now in his latest, ZEE5 Global’s Saali Mohabbat, Divyenndu steps into the shoes of a cop for the first time, playing Ratan Pandit — a character he describes as deeply human, flawed, and walking a moral tightrope. What drew him to the film was its world and its people: a thriller populated not by heroes and villains, but by believable grey characters reacting to difficult circumstances. His preparation for the role reflects his larger process — arriving on set fully prepared, avoiding clichés and over the top histrionics. Instead, he chose to play it more nuanced, real and grounded in the emotional truth of the character.
Despite the enduring shadow of Munna Bhaiyya, he believes in remaining unfazed and focused on the work ahead that includes the South biggie Peddi, Madgaon Express sequel, Glory and the much-awaited Mirzapur the Movie! In our exclusive interview, Divyenndu speaks candidly about his acting process, about Saali Mohabbat, his dislike for manufactured hype, his comfort with staying away from PR machinery and also why being unlucky in love on screen doesn’t bother him at all. The big reveal: He someday hopes to play a supernatural role with a touch of romance! Excerpts
You’ve been doing fantastic work, but you’ve always been extremely selective about the projects you choose to associate with and we weren’t seeing you do too many of them…
Yes, that’s because, it’s never been about numbers. I thoroughly believe that if I can’t enjoy it, I cannot be a part of it. Although the last couple of years, you must’ve seen me in one too many projects. The Railway Men, then Madgaon Express, Agni. That’s also because the interesting options and offers have increased.
What made you say a yes to doing Saali Mohabbat. Also you’re playing a cop for the first time!
It was the whole world, the milieu of Saali Mohabbat, you know, the characters, what’s going on between them. I love the fact that every character there is grey. It’s about people finding themselves in different kinds of situations and their reactions to them. So that was very believable for me, especially in a thriller. And it was very important to have all these believable characters when we talk about a thriller. So it’s not an in-your-face gangster sort of a thriller, it’s a friendly neighborhood thriller, if I may call it that! It was interesting how it all shaped up, so I immediately said a yes to it. Right.
It looks like it’s ready for a sequel…
Yes, hope so!
“I don’t want manufactured greatness. It has to be you! This is such a pure and a pious medium where I want to be authentic and serve the audience something which comes from deep within me, or at times from my personal experiences, open my heart in front of them and keep it. I don’t want all these things to come and pollute it. So, I’m very happy with who I am. I’m very happy under my skin. I don’t want these crutches to walk on.”
Are you the kind of actor who gets into the character much before the shoot starts or is it an instant on–camera off-camera thing process for you?
No, I definitely like my time to prepare to go into it. That’s how my training has always been. Be it theater or film institute or anything. I like to go on sets prepared. If I’m ever not prepared, it’s one thing I’d really detest about myself. So I make sure that whenever I go, I’m always there, prepared. I’d rather be over-prepared than under-prepared!
So what was the prep like playing Ratan Pandit?
It was a very tightrope walking, playing Ratan. I didn’t want to make it a cliche sort of a cop, and I wanted to make him very relatable and the kind of a guy where you feel for him. He’s someone who wants to achieve so much in life, but he gets into this kind of a situation. Maybe I might have done the same thing. So that was the whole prep.
Yes, you have avoided all over-the-top histrionics and kept it subtle and nuanced! Was there any one particular layer to Ratan Pandit that you really enjoyed or related to a lot?
Yeah, the fact that Ratan is very human. He’s got all the dreams and desires… love, greed, everything we all human beings have. But I think he’s very different from me. I come from Delhi, he comes from a very small town. So the way I think and how Ratan thinks and reacts are two very different things, which made him very interesting for me. I don’t like characters at all where I could say he was like me! I want to keep my real self very personal to me and not show anyone what I’m really like.
So, what are you really like?
See, when we are in front of the camera or like now, when we’re giving an interview, we already have so much of ourselves exposed. There’s so much exposure to us, to our lives, to who we are! I feel, there has to be some part of us that has to be hidden, otherwise, there is no point of being an artist if you’re always out there, you know, in your faces, and doing stuff here and there. I’m not like that. I always feel that you do your job, go back, do some more prep, do other things in life, but cannot be monkeying around being seen everywhere.
Why is it that your love life on screen somehow is always jinxed like your characters are largely very unlucky in love?
Yeah, that’s definitely right. Maybe it’s because I think in real life, I got lucky in love quite early in life. So then God said, let’s play the contrast. That always adds a layer, no?
Tell us more about working with your co-actors – especially Radhika Apte!
Radhika and I, we don’t have too many scenes together, but whatever scenes we have, they are of high tension, high drama. So I think this is a spoiler alert for people, it’s actually a scene in the trailer as well, where Ratan comes really close and he tells her that he knows that she did it! So that one, I really enjoyed and Radhika was such a great support in that scene, because, you know, I was the one who was doing the talking. She was just there present in the scene, and I really acknowledge that.
Having done comedy and intense dramatic roles too, what comes more easily to you?
Honestly, drama comes much easier to me, because I’ve been trained in drama during my theatre days and film school and everything. Comedy is damn tough. Like really, really tough. And I always feel that whenever I have to do comedy, it’s so much prep one has to do, because in comedy, there are no grey areas. Either you get it right, or you don’t. At the same time, you need to have very good co-actors who can match the timing. You need to have a brilliant script. The comedy has to be on paper, there is only so much one can improvise. Drama is slightly easier because you can do a lot of stuff on your own as well. There are cinematic tools which help you amplify the drama part. But comedy is like, dude, standing in a football field, and you know, trying to do something. There is no way you can hide anything. So I find comedy much more difficult.
If you were given the choice of being any one of the characters you have played instead of being Divyenndu, which character would you pick to be?
Oh, interesting. Which one would it be? I can’t name one. They’re all very different. I don’t want to be Liquid. I don’t want to be Dodo. I don’t want to be Munna for sure! Railmen, Agni obviously nahin. I can’t be an encounter specialist. No, quite difficult!
Is there a specific role you have on your wish list that you’d want to play on screen?
Yeah, I’d like to do something supernatural maybe. In terms of performance, there are no boundaries there. Because be it comedy or drama, there are certain boundaries you have to play within. But when it comes to the supernatural, you can be this other being and this other entity where people have no reference point of and you can be anything you want to. And on top of that, if I get to play a vampire, nothing like it. Cherry on top!
Wow, and we’d like to see where it goes. Comedy, romance, hopefully as a vampire, you would get more romance!
Yes, that too. But again, when we talk about Count Dracula, he was someone who lost his love. And you know, there was this longing for love. So again, maybe that stems out somewhere deeper. Maybe I attract such things! Maybe, deep down I’m some aashiq of pichle janam ka, you know, who’s looking for all this (laughs).
What is the one thing the industry has taught you?
My learning from the industry is that don’t try to be someone you’re not. Yes, initially, it might feel like you’re missing out on a lot of things, you want to please a lot of people, but no, if you stick to your guns, there are people who might doubt you and put doubt in your mind, but there are people who are silently supporting you. And they’re not always people with names and faces. But you will be surprised when you meet top of the top people in the industry. And they say, you know what, I’ve been following your journey from day one. And I’m really happy you made certain choices. So, the key is to just be yourself and not do things under pressure or just because others are…
“It amuses me a lot how people think that Munna (Munna Tripathi from Mirzapur) is a real entity… So when they see me, they meet me like that. Like Namaste Munna Bhaiya, Pranam Munna Bhaiya. That just amuses me and it shows the power of what we do as actors. People believe what they want to believe. They know it’s a fictional character. But still, they don’t want to accept it’s a fictional character.”
But do you believe in this entire PR machinery that kind of goes in an overdrive? You have always stayed away from it yourself!
Absolutely! I don’t want manufactured greatness. It has to be you!
I mean, this is such a pure and a pious medium where I want to be authentic and serve the audience something which comes from deep within me, or at times from my personal experiences, open my heart in front of you and keep it. I don’t want all these things to come and pollute it. So, I’m very happy with who I am.
I’m very happy under my skin. I don’t want these crutches to walk on. The PR machinery is going ballistic with this agenda, like oh my God, look at him, look at her, whatever. No! It’s something I really, from the bottom of my heart, detest.
After Saali Mohabbat, what are your other upcoming projects?
There’s this project I did for Netflix called Glory. Then there’s my Telugu film Peddi. Then we will start shooting for Madgaon Express 2. And hopefully, you might see Mirzapur in theatres.
I think everyone must be asking you about it! Do you still get called Munna Bhaiyya?
A lot! Yeah, a lot!
Do you find it a bit challenging or do you feel the artistic pressure to now find a role that could be bigger than Munna Bhaiyya?
Honestly I don’t really think too much about it. I feel like people can call me whatever they like. People used to call me Liquid. People used to call me Omi. So I don’t really take notice of all these things too much or let that convert into a pressure of any sort. Because if you think too much about these things, then they get on your nerves. You know, you swell a little in life. So no, I’m just an artist, I’m just an actor and I’m doing my work. Yes, it amuses me a lot how people think that Munna is a real entity and he, you know, lives in this parallel world. So when they see me, they meet me like that. Like Namaste Munna Bhaiya, Pranam Munna Bhaiya. That just amuses me and it shows the power of what we do as actors. People believe what they want to believe. They know it’s a fictional character. But still, they don’t want to accept it’s a fictional character. It just amuses me more than anything!