CHENNAI : Bollywood is looking at Sunny Hinduja, the beloved ‘Sandeep bhaiyya’ from TVF’s Aspirants, in a different light. The actor, known for comparatively subtler roles on OTT, is often being seen as the big-screen baddie, locking horns with Kartik Aaryan in the 2023 action-comedy Shehzaada and most recently with Sidharth Malhotra in Yodha. “It was a Dharma film. The role was that of the main villain,” he says. “An offer I couldn’t possibly refuse.”
What is it about Sunny that makes him look like a formidable villain? Is it his chiselled cheekbones? His burly physique? Or are these roles just a way to be a part, albeit a small one, of a larger picture? “I am ok with doing any role where I can show my skills as an actor. It’s a good place to start with if my character has a graph and is ultimately saying something,” says Hinduja. “If getting work at the moment means playing villains, so be it. You can only choose from the roles that are being offered. Of course, even I would want to do lead roles.”
It’s not just Bollywood. Hinduja is gearing up for his Malayalam debut with the film Hello Mummy, a horror-comedy, in which he will be essaying the role of an exorcist. It might not be a villain per se, but could be a character with grey shades. The actor is a bit cagey in revealing details of the plot and character and gives the dreaded “that’s all I can possibly share at the moment” response. However, he candidly shares his experience of working with a Malayalam film team for the first time. “What stood out for me is that the people here are synonymous with simplicity and humility. Even when there is a difference between their language and ours, they are always humble,” he says. On the topic of language, we ask him if he had to learn Malayalam for the role. “A little bit, but thankfully I didn’t have to speak much Malayalam in the film.”
When it comes to OTT, Hinduja, even when on the sidelines, has had a slew of varied roles. Recently, he played a journalist in the gut-wrenching The Railway Men. His first notable OTT performance was in The Family Man, as an intelligence operative. But what possibly gave him the most acclaim, to the level that he got his own spinoff series, was the chain-smoking, contemplative IAS aspirant Sandeep Ohlan in Aspirants. When asked what made the character so relevant? Hinduja takes a pensive pause. “In a way, everybody is an aspirant,” he says. “The difficulties Sandeep bhaiyya faced are something that I think everybody does when they want to achieve something. There is competition, the need for hard work, the problems in arthik sthithi (financial situation).”
But is the playing field different for him, compared to someone who is part of the film fraternity? “Those from film families might get two or three extra chances. This is a cut-throat industry,” he says. “If you get a chance to bat, you better hit a six.”