Tanuj Virwani: "People Think Star Kids Get A Movie Through Just A Phone Call; They Don't Know How Much You Have To Slog"

Season 2 of Inside Edge is on and yet again Tanuj Virwani is stealing the show as the hot-headed Vayu Raghavan. As the captain of the T-20 cricket team, he is continuing from where he left in the first season where he delivered a knockout performance as the flamboyant cricketer. While it is quite exhilarating to witness the depth and the distance that the Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani production is exploring when it comes to the politics of cricket, it is equally exciting to see Tanuj Virwani in great action in his dramatic as well as cricketing avatar.

"Well, I had to go an extra distance since at the end of the first season my character had already been established as a captain. From there to the second season, there was this whole proving-the-point transition that he had to go through. He has to show it to the world that he is worthy of captaincy. Moreover, when you turn into a captain, you are not just a cricketer on the field; you are also a team player. I had to work a lot on getting the characterization right and also bring my cricketing shots to perfection. After all, a captain needs to be perfect," chuckles Tanuj who is happy accumulating the accolades that are already coming his way ever since the Friday premier of the show.

While there was a lot of practice involved on the cricket field during the making of the second season, fortunately for Tanuj he went unscathed even when he was hit on the neck by the cricket ball. Ironically though, he ended up suffering multiple fractures on his hand when he was playing cricket with his friends on a casual weekend outing.

"Can you believe it," Tanuj sighs, followed by a hearty laughter, "We played for so many weeks when I could have been grievously injured. In fact there was this incident when I even got hit on the neck. And there I was, harmlessly playing near my building, and lo and behold I injured myself taking a simple catch. I felt something was wrong after I felt the pinch and on checking with the doctor I realized that I had suffered four fractures. That said, you have to look at the silver lining as it could have been worse. Fortunately, my other nine fingers are working."

Now that he is back in the bigger scheme of things after also been seen in another web series Poison earlier this year, Tanuj is looking at a mighty season ahead. While Inside Edge 2 is currently on, he would also be seen in Code M, Kamatipura and Cartel in next few months. This isn't all as the third season of Inside Edge will return sooner than expected as well. Guess the period of struggle to break big is finally through for the talented actor whose identity in the earlier days was being actress Rati Agnihotri's son.

"I hope so, and this is where I relate so much to Vayu Raghavan," Tanuj says in a serious tone, "There are struggles that Vayu has gone through to reach where he is today. People do think that he is the next big superstar but then they are seeing this from an outsider's point of view. With me too something similar had happened during the earlier years in the industry. They thought that being a star kid would help me get a movie through just a phone call. Par aise nahi hota hai. You have to slog to get to where you are."

There are no regrets that the actor is carrying though, now that he is progressing quite well in his career.

"See, sometimes you have to prove it to yourselves and not to others," says Tanuj, "I am quite a competitive person. Not that I am aggressive in my day to day life but then when I am playing, I want to win. That's my attitude in life and that is what I have tried to bring on screen as well through the characters that I play."