We were lucky to catch up with Pranjal Acharya recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Pranjal, thank you for being such a positive, uplifting person. We’ve noticed that so many of the successful folks we’ve had the good fortune of connecting with have high levels of optimism and so we’d love to hear about your optimism and where you think it comes from.
I have been a big fan of sports. Growing up I tried to play every sport I could. One big thing that a sport teaches you is that you might be the best player in the world but you can still lose. At the end of the day, somebody wins, somebody loses. Now just because you have lost today, does not mean you can’t win tomorrow. It doesn’t mean that you’re not good enough. All it means is that somebody was better than you on that day. Do you need to work harder? Always. But even then, victory is not guaranteed. Nobody can guarantee that for you. What it guarantees is the fighting spirit. The fact that you fall down every day, and still get up, prepare again, to face the action again, that takes guts. If it was easy everyone would be Virat Kohli or Tiger Woods. It’s not easy. Being an actor, writer, filmmaker, I face rejection almost every other day. An audition doesn’t go through, A script is rejected or a film is just not finding the funding to go on floor. What keeps me going is the belief I have in my skills and the happiness the craft brings to me and the people who love me. Plus I love being the motivator. I think for me to be at my prime in whatever I am doing, it is imperative to be in an atmosphere where people push each other to do the best. Surround yourself with people who push positive vibes in the room, with people who want to you see grow. I have built that environment for me. That is what makes me thrive.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
At a point of time I felt super weird talking about myself or telling people what I am good at, but after 3 years of freelancing in the industry, I realised that if you don’t talk about yourself, no one else will. So Hi everyone, this is Pranjal Acharya and here is my story. I am no big-shot, yet. From a not so big but beautiful city called Jaipur in Rajasthan, I moved to Mumbai, the Indian city of dreams. Why did I make this move? I wanted to be in movies, movies are made in Mumbai, simple. What is not so simple is being in movies when you don’t know anybody in the industry, or the city. After consistently auditioning for a couple of years and landing a couple of music video and ad gigs, I realised that this wouldn’t work. Not the profession, but the waiting part. Growing up I have learned to be patient, but waiting sucks. If you don’t get opportunities, you make them. A few people as passionate as me who I met in my college believed the same. We started creating things with all our heart. We worked on various beautiful projects that included short films, music videos and advertisements. I discovered by passion for writing and wrote multiple projects. The most exciting part of what I do is probably the funniest one too. Throughout the process of making a film, an ad or any other content piece, multiple people put their heart and soul in it. But till the actual piece reaches the edit table, nobody really knows what is the output going to be like. A film set works simply on trust and the energy that is there on it. The project might not turn out to be the best one but you got to believe it is, otherwise nothing functions.
One of the short films I co-wrote and co-directed with a dear friend Anant Jain (who also shot and edited the film) had its World Premier in Jio MAMI 2023. Since it was a 2 person crew on the whole thing, I was the only actor in the film as well. It was a beautiful feeling to see a zero budget short getting featured in one of India’s biggest film festivals.
Some recent works include an advertisement I wrote and directed for JK Paper for their Environment Day campaign, A youtube content piece I co-wrote with the hilarious Hussain Mohammad for Netflix’s grand show, Heeramandi. It was a poetic roast in alignment with the theme of the show.
A lot of exciting new things are on their way. Currently working on my feature film screenplay along with my book, hopefully, you will be seeing everything come to life very soon.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
1. Patience – The reward you are seeking shouldn’t just last for a day and hence in order to achieve it, it would take more than one. Focus on growth and not results. 2. Having the right circle – I can not stress on the importance of this more. Having the right people around you is so crucial for your mental well being. People that are point blank honest with you regarding your work, people who want to see you excel in life.
3. Empathy – No matter what you do in life, be a good person first and be an artist or anything else second. Specifically in terms of art, you can not create honest work if you are not empathetic. Be respectful, be kind, the world needs more peace and good vibes.
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
1. Steal like an Artist by Austin Kleon in a cahp says “Nothing is Original” and that’s that. We keep waiting for the perfect idea that will transform everything, that will change the world but in practicality everything has been thought of or executed by someone else. We just push our execution waiting for the perfect thing to appear where we need to just get up and do it, try to be as close to perfect in our execution of things.
2. The Creative Act – A way of being by Rick Rubin. Rick here says that an idea is bigger than you, me or anyone else. We do not think of ideas ourselves, we are just the medium. Every choice we make is meant to lead us to a point where we are inspired to do something. But if we do not act upon that idea as soon as possible, the idea will find a different medium to come into existence. That is what the idea wants, to come into existence of this universe. So if you think you have the big idea, do not wait upon it or you will end up being the person who says “Ah, I had a similar idea, they just executed it first.”
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pranjalacharyaa/
- Youtube: https://youtu.be/qv0j-udvuZ8?si=4GaNYAsgF-KaASd4
- Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8335733/
Image Credits
Onimesh Das Siddharth Ahuja Anant Jain Mayank Kukreja Sagar Keswani
