HT: A TV star or movie hero? - Eijaz

We're both, say small screen actors who juggle schedules to act in both mediums

Small budget films don't offer good money. You need to be a Shah Rukh Khan to be paid in crores
— Actor Ragini Khanna

From page 01 When TV star Barun Sobti signed a film called Main Aur Mr Right, he became the latest small screen actor to attempt to get the best of both worlds of entertainment. Not so long ago, actors had very specific choices — either work on TV or work in films. They couldn't do both. Today, however, actors are doing it all. Ram Kapoor of Sony's Bade Achche Lagte Hain, for instance, has done numerous films including Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu. Ronit Roy has a hit courtroom drama, Adalaat, as well as three films in hand. Gaurav Chopra did a blink-and-you-miss-it role in Blood Diamond (2006) and now will be seen in the film Rangbari even as he hosts the TV show Savdhan India. Others who have been there and done that are Juhi Parmar, Narayani Shashtri, Chetan Hansraj, Manav Gohil, Shaleen Bhanot, Sakshi Tanwar and Shweta Tiwari.

Working in both mediums means hard work. Typically, an actor in a daily soap works 12-16 hours of work a day, 20 days a month. Add films to the portfolio, and work-life balance could suffer badly. But that doesn't faze today's TV stars. Where once actors like Amar Upadhyay and Aman Varma had to quit TV altogether to do films, today's stars seem to straddle both mediums with ease. And that's because the actors want a challenge.

"I do films as I want to work with experienced filmmakers and grow as an actor," says Ronit Roy. Ronit's performance in the film Udaan (2010) was highly acclaimed and, in the last 18 months, he has shot for Deepa Mehta's Midnight's Children and Karan Johar's Student of the Year. Now, he's working on Sanjay Gupta's Shootout at Wadala.

Eijaz Khan, who has Sony's Shubh Vivaah and the film Zilla Ghaziabad, says, "We have new age directors who want actors, not 'stars', which is why TV actors are a good option. Work on TV gets monotonous, and film roles are a good change."