A Star of the Common People

A candid chat with famous actor-comedian Sanjay Mishra.

-  Santosh Mehta

Famous Bollywood actor Sanjay Mishra hardly needs introduction. After working for 27 years in the Bollywood, he has become a well-known face for his audience and the fans. He has performed a variety of roles in almost 200 Hindi films as well as Bhojpuri, Telugu and Punjabi among others. Most of his films got hit and appreciated by audiences.

Sanjay is an alumnus of National School of Drama (NSD), Delhi. He made his debut with Oh Darling Yeh hai India (1995), in which he played a very small role as a harmonium player. Yet, he got recognised because of his acting skills as he knows the pulse of his audience.

Sanjay was born into middle class family in Darbhanga sakri Naranpur (Bihar) on the 6th October 1963.

His father, the late Shambhu Nath Mishra was a journalist and used to work with Press Information Bureau and got transferred to Varanasi, where he studied at Kendriya Vidyalaya (BHU).

Sanjay got married with Kiran, who's a well-known name in Hindi poetry. He has two children - Pal Mishra and Lamba Mishra.

Sanjay did many commercials and even small films before getting a big break to work with legendary star Amitabh Bachchan in a soft drink commercial.

Afterwards, he performed in Satya directed by Ram Gopal Verma and Dil Se, directed by Mani Ratnam. In these movies, he acted along with Shah Rukh Khan, Manisha Koirala and Preity zinta.

As all these stars were famous so, he got much attention after acting in these films and his popularity increased among his audience.

Incidentally, these films also helped him get great offers from the television serial Office, in which he acted as paanwala (Shukla) that gave him much appreciation due to his natural desi style comedy and dialogues.

Besides these interesting facts about this actor, one can see that he has given many hit films also.