Success has been Pankaj Tripathi’s steady companion over the past few years. Now, he is pursuing something more — as a new producer, he wants to tell meaningful stories. As he steps into his new role, Tripathi says the actor in him will take a backseat. “I will take up less acting work. If I want to produce something, I won’t act for six-eight months that year. I have been working 300 days a year. Now, I want to give only 100-150 days to acting. I want to dedicate the remaining days to producing plays and other hobbies,” he tells us over a phone call.
His production dream is already being executed. While Tripathi’s first play, Lailaaj, opened in Mumbai last week, his first series, Perfect Family, premiered on YouTube on November 28. “In a year or two, we’ll do a feature film. Filmmaking is a costly medium, but I don’t want to earn a lot from it. I want to tell the stories of my heart,” he says.
Pankaj Tripathi
Perfect Family is one such story. The series revolves around a family that is compelled to seek therapy after one of its members has an anxiety attack. “The show came to me after the shoot was done. Had producer Ajay Rai asked me to join the series as an actor, I would have, because it tells an important story,” emphasises Tripathi.
Even as the subject of mental health has entered the public discourse in the last few years, the actor notes that it has yet to penetrate in smaller cities and towns of India. “People in villages take mental health lightly,” he says.
So did he at one point. Tripathi admits that earlier, he wasn’t an endorser of therapy. “If you had asked me three years ago, I would have said, ‘Therapy and all are useless things. Wake up in the morning and exercise; you are overthinking.’ But I don’t say that now. When I’ll feel the need, I will see a therapist. If someone is seeking therapy, I will not judge them. We need to normalise it like cold and cough.”