Between Two Worlds, Rohan Gurbaxani Finds His Own

Bollywood actor Rohan Gurbaxani is right on the cusp. Not as someone who’s just starting out, but someone in that rare, potent middle – where the work is getting sharper, the rooms are getting bigger, and the recognition is no longer just wishful thinking. Gurbaxani is there right now.

A Bangalore-born, New York-trained actor, he belonged, at once, to the grit and structure of Hollywood sets – starting out as an assistant director in Los Angeles, he was running cables, handling food, being the last one to leave.

Gurbaxani trained at NYU Tisch and the Lee Strasberg Institute. He prepared for auditions for Law and Order and NCIS in his dorm room, working backstage while others aimed for centre stage. Then the pandemic happened, and suddenly, the actor who had just wrapped seven films—three as an actor, four as crew—found himself back home in Bangalore.

In an earlier interview, he talked about how his goal was always to come back to Hindi cinema, but the pandemic pushed him to break into the industry earlier than expected. What followed was a breakout role in Made in Heaven 2, a blink-and-you-miss-it moment in Rocky Aur Rani…, and then a performance in Bandish Bandits 2 that made Vicky Kaushal walk up to him and say, “Bhai, I loved your performance.”

Now, he’s fully absorbed in the chaotic, emotionally tuned pulse of Bollywood, and is starring opposite industry veterans like Konkona Sen Sharma in Metro…In Dino, and carries himself with the unmistakable quiet of someone who has built his foundation from the ground up. He didn’t need viral fame or dramatic PR spin. What he wanted was credibility. “When Zoya Akhtar told me she liked my work in Made in Heaven, that was the moment,” he tells Esquire India. “That’s when I felt like—okay, maybe now I can call myself an actor.”

But even now, with upcoming action thrillers in the pipeline, he’s wary of anything that smells like arrival. The hustle, he insists, is what keeps him sharp. “I don’t think the struggle ever stops. And that’s a good thing,” he says. “Otherwise you get comfortable. You start to believe you’ve reached—and then there’s no reason to push harder.” For his role as Ayaan, the piano prodigy in Bandish Bandits 2, he had just three weeks to learn how to play like a virtuoso. He learned everyday to make it seem “real” and he absolutely nailed it.

Today, as he stands on the cusp of a more public chapter—with more eyes, bigger roles, and higher stakes—Rohan Gurbaxani remains uninterested in declaring arrival. There’s no hurry in his voice. Just the quiet clarity of someone who’s in it for the long game—writing his own script, through all the ups and downs.

In a conversation with Esquire India, Gurbaxani delves into his journey, upcoming projects, and why he loves the struggle.

Excerpts from a conversation.

Let’s start at the start — how has the ride been so far? The acting hustle, the shifts, the rejections, the wins?

The journey has been a very rewarding one but only because hustle is in my blood and part of the journey includes rejections and rejections keep you humble because humility and art go very well hand in hand and that's what it's done for me.

Not being from the “inner circle”, is it tough trying to break through Bollywood today? Do you feel like you’ve had to prove more than the others?

Breaking into any industry is very tough and in fact I think the inner circle people have more to prove than the outer circle actors who come in to the industry.

When did you first feel like, ‘Okay, I’m not just trying anymore. I am an actor now.’

I think when I got validation from one of my favourite filmmakers ever, Zoya Akhtar for Made in Heaven Season 2, I think that's when I felt like, “Theekhe, now I've become an actor.”

How was it working with Bollywood veterans like Anurag Basu, Konkana Sen, Pankaj Tripathi in Metro…In Dino?

It was a never-ending learning experience for me. It was an acting school of its own to work with a director like Dada and to have Dada's unpredictable process tied in with Pankaj Ji's warmth and humour along with Konkana Sen's charisma, it was just pure artistic synergy that I was feeding off of every day.

You’ve had roles in Bandish Bandits, Kho Gaye Hum Kahan, etc. What’s your creative process like?

So, the creative process differs from character to character but one thing I always do is always find a strong justification for my character's actions whether it is negative or positive because from there comes truth in performance.

You said the struggle keeps you sharp. What does ‘success’ look like to you right now—today, not someday?

Success to me is working with people who put you out of your comfort zone and the people who constantly put themselves in situations of discomfort. Those people are successful.

On the same note, how do you cope with the struggle – the hard days?

Everyone has hard days but I think the successful people are ones who can persevere through the hardships and my coping mechanism is through gratitude of what I have in my life and what I look forward to.

What kind of characters do you want to play in the coming future?

I would definitely want to play an athlete and a superhero.

If you weren’t doing this, what would you be doing?

If I weren't doing this, I’d probably be an athlete. 

What’s next for you? Anything exciting in the pipeline?

Some exciting action thriller projects, but that I’ll announce when the time is right.

What’s one thing about you that people just get wrong? Or underestimate?

Hmmn, one thing that people get wrong about me is that I can read their mind. laughs