Vikrant Massey’s TV Marathon: 110-Hour Non-Stop Work as Morning Shifts Blend into Night

Actor Vikrant Massey has been winning everything since 12th Fail became successful. His most recent achievement was winning Most Promising Actor at the Dadasaheb Phalke Awards, where the movie won Best Film (Critics) recognition. Even though Vikrant is receiving accolades and media attention for the Vidhu Vinod Chopra film, he doesn’t forget to discuss his challenges as an artist, particularly in his early TV days. The actor, whose career began in Hindi television, initially put in 110 hours straight for a show. Speaking with Unfiltered by Samdish, Vikrant recalled television as a cutthroat industry where performers had to put in long, hard hours. He worked on shows like Balika Vadhu, Dharam Veer, Baba Aisa Var Dhoondho, etc.

“They had no choice but to use me as a filler. Day shifts were melting into night shifts. There was no sense of time. Funnily, when they finally packed up, it wasn’t even for me. An actor who came to the set at 10 am in the morning got upset and walked out  by evening,” Vikrant reminisced.

The actor, who started his acting career on the small screen at the age of 17, and worked for over a decade, quit the medium when he had a Rs 35 lakh per month contract in hand. He wanted to do  “good work and find peace.”

Loved for his role as Shyam bhai in Balika Vadhu, Vikrant revealed that the original idea was for him to make a brief appearance in the series, but he ended up staying for more than two years. “I only worked on the show for two years because the material was good, but I decided to leave the show even though people enjoyed my role because, as you can imagine, TV content gets repetitive after a while.” The 36-year-old actor said.