MUMBAI: Bijay Anand has proved himself time and again by portraying characters not many have tried before, and feels blessed to be an actor at a time when cinema is evolving “Audience is now open to different genres apart from romance and comedy. They now like to watch films which are content driven and not star driven”

For actor Bijay, acting is a passion and joy similar to his famous meditation classes that he teaches around the world. Having made a comeback with Siya Ke Ram after a long hiatus of 16 years, the only problem he faced was that due to his new avataar as a yoga guru to his thousands of followers around the world, he only wound up with goody roles of a kind, warm hearted and beautiful human being.

But the actor within him was screaming for a juicy and meaty role to enact that would highlight his acting prowess which he had amply displayed as a negative character in Pyar to Hona Hi Tha, Kurukshetra and Aasman Se Aagey.

Along came the offer from Disney Hotstar to play Malik, the ruthless International terrorist who’s out to disfigure the map of India and change the description of terrorism as we know it by planning the most heinous terrorist attack in human history. 

We ask Bijay how it was to pivot himself in a character that was so much the opposite of what he is in real life and this is what he said, “No matter how holy and pious we become in life, there’s always a tiny bit of tamas that always remains a part of us. Without this tamas, we would not be able to operate normally. For example, if you were 100% purely Sattva, you would never get any sleep. So Tamas is an integral part of our life. As an actor, all that I need to do is amplify and magnify that tiny part of Tamas already in me to become the ruthless and heinous Malik. And that’s what I love about being an actor. It’s the same like losing yourself in meditation. When you lose yourself, you find yourself.”