EXCLUSIVE: Jimmy Shergill reveals how Munnabhai MBBS made him move from leading to character roles

Jimmy Shergill has given many memorable roles in his career spanning over 25 years. The actor has achieved some big successes with them. He has given many roles which later became a part of pop culture. But most of those parts were character roles and not leading ones. And the actor started doing such parts quite early on in his career. In an exclusive chat with Bollywood Bubble, he discussed this move from leading to character roles.

Jimmy Shergill on moving from leading to character roles

The actor has been doing phenomenal work on the big as well as the digital screen. And with the advent of OTT, character roles have started getting much more respect and recognition. However, that wasn’t the case when Jimmy made his move from leading to character roles. When asked if it proved challenging to survive in the industry during that move, he answered in the negative. He also informed that it was Rajkumar Hirani’s Munnabhai MBBS that started the move for him.

Jimmy said, “No, I stayed relevant because of those roles. It was a conscious decision Munnabhai onwards to move into meatier, juicier roles where you were doing something. Otherwise you were being the same person- clean shaven, short hair, long hair but clean shaven and a bit nice, breeze flowing, singing songs. Lovely, I would love to do that again. But the thing is when you are doing it back-to-back again and again every single film, so what was the fun as an actor? “

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He added, “My thought was that 5 years later, people would have had enough of it. And then what do you do? That’s when I started picking and choosing roles like Munnabhai MBBS, A Wednesday, Sahib Biwi Aur Gangster, Tanu Weds Manu, these kind of things and they all started to make a difference.”

Jimmy’s choices sure did make a difference and he has given some iconic roles because of it. He gave the iconic Zaheer from Sanjay Dutt starrer Munnabhai MBBS and Raja Awasthi from Tanu Weds Manu, amongst others. Even today, he keeps on surprising his audience with his versatility.

You can watch the entire conversation with Jimmy, his Choona co-star Aashim Gulati and director Pushpendra Nath Misra here:

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