When you have National Award-winning Pankaj Tripathi as your co-actor, it’s bound to be a learning experience. That was, in fact, one of the reasons why Sanjana Sanghi decided to star in Kadak Singh, Zee 5’s new financial thriller. The 27-year-old actor plays the daughter of Tripathi’s titular character, an official in the Department of Financial Crimes, suffering from retrograde amnesia.
And, Sanghi got plenty to learn during the 10-day workshop leading up to the film’s shoot. “That’s when we became friends. We discovered Sakshi (her character) and Kadak Singh along the way,” she says about the Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury directorial, which was released on December 8.
Even though the film is a finance thriller, its core lies in the complex father-daughter relationship. Sanghi shares that the film allowed her to explore an unfamiliar aspect to a familiar bond. Unlike the loving relationship with her real-life father, the one depicted in the film is fraught with tension and anxiety. “Sakshi forms the epicentre of the story. Forced to grow up way before her years, she is trying to hold the family together in the face of a crisis. For someone like me, who comes from a secure household, it was fun to jump into uncharted territory,” she says. Expectedly, Tripathi only made the experience more memorable. “I think all actors who have played his daughters onscreen are lucky. He too jokes about it. ‘It did for Janhvi Kapoor (Gunjan Saxena) and Kriti Sanon (Bareilly Ki Barfi). It’s your turn now’, he told me,” she adds.
The fact that she got the opportunity to work with a seasoned actor early on in her career makes Kadak Singh more special. Sanghi is four films old in the industry. The Delhi girl made her debut as a lead actor in Dil Bechara, an adaptation of John Greene’s The Fault in Our Stars. She believes it was her role as the thyroid cancer patient, Kizie Basu, in the 2020 film that got filmmakers to notice her.
“There was nothing glamorous about Kizie and getting to start off like that made filmmakers believe in my versatility,” she says. The actor has also starred in the actioner Rashtra Kavach Om (2022) with Aditya Roy Kapoor, and Dhak Dhak, which was released earlier this year. In the latter, Sanghi played one of the four women, who set out on a life-changing bike expedition to Leh. This kind of range for a young actor, she feels, is rare and something she continues to strive for. “Variety is something I chase. I have a natural bent towards complex family and relationship dramas, which allow me to experiment with my craft,” she elaborates.
This clarity of thought paved the way for Sanghi’s acting career. Even though she made her onscreen debut as a child actor in Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar (2011), she took almost a decade before plunging into acting full-time. She kept doing television commercials and cameos in films such as Baar Baar Dekho, Hindi Medium and Fukrey Returns as she finished her graduation. “I am glad I did that. If I had moved sooner, I would have been more vulnerable and unsure of myself,” she explains.
Even as she takes in all the praise for Kadak Singh, Sanghi already knows what she wants to do next. “I have this burning desire to bite into a series now. If a compelling offer comes my way, I’d love to dive right into it,” she says with clear conviction.