MUMBAI: Actor Anup Soni, popular for his roles in TV series such as Balika Vadhu (2008), Crime Patrol (2003) and controversial web-series Tandav (2021), recently opened up about how there a point in his career where he was not getting too many acting opportunities, due to which he became an acting teacher. He ended up training Akshaye Khanna at Kishore Namit Kapoor’s acting institute in Mumbai.

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In an interview with The Lallantop, Anup shared that in the initial phase of his career, when he did not have too many acting assignments despite having graduated from the National School of Drama (NSD), he joined the Mumbai-based actor Kishore Namit Kapoor’s acting institute. He said, “I am a very restless soul, I don’t like sitting idle. I always feel the need to do something. When I was new, there were no mobile phones, we used to make calls on PCOs. So, if I made three calls a day, and then they would ask me to call back the next week, I would know that nothing to do the rest of the day. My friends and I would hop on a train and go and sit at Marine Drive to pass time, but then I told myself that this is not something I can do every day, I had to do something to keep my mind busy.

He continued, “One day, I took a directory and got the number of Kishore Namit (Kapoor) sahab. I told him that I am from the National School of Drama (NSD) and I am interested in teaching at his acting institute. I told him I could take voice classes and teach scene design. So he asked me to see him, and I started teaching there once a week, then twice a week, and then I started teaching thrice a week. He started liking me. At the time, he used to take his classes in a flat, so when he came to know that I can teach voice modulation, he booked a hall for me in Juhu. I can’t be teaching voice modulation in the flat, because there will be a lot of noise and it will disturb the neighbours. So he would book a hall for me to take the class every Sunday.”

Anup then shared that during his teaching stint, he trained Akshaye Khanna, who made his acting debut with Himalay Putra in the year 1997. He also found himself training other budding actors at the time, for a nominal fee of Rs 300 per class. But he then gave it all up because it was time-consuming and not helping his acting career.

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“That’s when I realised that I didn’t want to be a teacher, I wanted to be an actor. So, I promised him that I’d take a class every now and then. During this time I taught Akshaye Khanna, Tara Deshpande, Priyanka Gill… But after a point I didn’t want to get busy teaching. Kishore Namit Kapoor really liked me, I would charge Rs 300 per class, that he increased to Rs 400 and from once a week, I was taking a class four days a week. But I had to leave it. And I have done this at every turning point in my life, whenever I felt that I was doing something just for the money, I would move on,” said Anup.

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Credits - The Indian Express