Pankaj Tripathi, who will be next seen in Amar Kaushik’s directorial venture, Stree 2, has been a part of the Hindi film industry for more than a decade. Tripathi gained recognition after featuring in Anurag Kashyap’s two-part crime drama, Gangs of Wasseypur.
The Mirzapur actor recently took us back to the GOW days as he reminisced about working on the sets of the film.
Pankaj Tripathi shares what being on the Gangs of Wasseypur set was like
During a recent interview with News18 Showsha, Pankaj Tripathi shared his experience of shooting for Gangs of Wasseypur in Uttar Pradesh during winter days.
Tripathi recalled that he didn’t have a vanity van on the sets along with other star casts of the film who were “all from theatre background”. The actor said that he doesn’t find an atmosphere like that of GOW in the present times.
GOW star cast would sit on chairs outside, recalls Pankaj Tripathi
Pankaj Tripathi compared the atmosphere of other film sets to that of Gangs of Wasseypur saying that nowadays, actors usually spend time in their vanity vans when they are not in a shot.
Remembering his “fond memories” from the shoot, he added, “[Gangs of] Wasseypur mein aise nahin hota tha kyunki vanity hi nahin thi. Bahar kursi lagake baithte the aur baatein zyada karte the (It didn’t happen during the filming of GOW as there were no vanity vans on the sets. We used to have our chairs outside, and would sit and talk for hours).”
When Pankaj Tripathi replaced Pankaj Jha in Gangs of Wasseypur
Pankaj Tripathi’s role as Sultan Qureshi, Sardar Khan’s enemy’s nephew, in Gangs of Wasseypur was initially offered to actor Pankaj Jha. However, as the latter actor was unavailable before the shoot of GOW, director Anurag Kashyap replaced him with Pankaj Tripathi.
Earlier, Kashyap had spilled the beans about casting Tripathi instead of Jha while admitting that he was on a “tight budget” and “could not wait for him”.
This came after the Panchayat actor took an indirect dig at Kashyap and Tripathi over the Gangs of Wasseypur incident. He had allegedly called the director “timid” and “spineless” and accused the Mirzapur actor of “glamorizing struggle”.
All about Gangs of Wasseypur
Gangs of Wasseypur was a period crime drama centred on the coal mafia of Dhanbad. The story is spanned for 68 years from 1941 to 2009.
The two-part movie featured an ensemble star cast including Manoj Bajpayee, Richa Chadha, Jaideep Ahlawat, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Tigmanshu Dhulia, and Huma Qureshi. It also starred Vineet Kumar Singh, Reema Sen, Zeishan Qadri, Piyush Mishra, Vipin Sharma, Pankaj Tripathi, Rajkummar Rao, and others.
While the first part, Gangs of Wasseypur was released in June 2012, the second part, Gangs of Wasseypur 2 hit the screens in August of the same year.
It is regarded as one of the greatest film series of all time.
Pankaj Tripathi is gearing up for the release of Stree 2, the sequel to the 2018 film, Stree. The upcoming horror comedy stars Rajkummar Rao and Shraddha Kapoor in the lead roles. Stree 2 will be released on August 15 on the occasion of Independence Day.
Tripathi also has Anurag Basu’s Metro…In Dino in the pipeline. It is a sequel to Basu’s 2007 film, Life..in a Metro.
Metro…In Dino will hit the screens on September 13 this year.
