Actor Pankaj Tripathi, currently gearing up for the release of his streaming film 'Parivarik ManuRanjan' on SonyLIV, has opened up about the emotional fragility that defines the acting profession — explaining that an actor's inner life is uniquely burdened because he simultaneously inhabits multiple characters beyond his own.

The Fragility of Living Many Lives

Speaking in the Goregaon East area of Mumbai alongside co-actor Aditi Rao Hydari, Tripathi said the emotional delicacy of actors is not a weakness but a byproduct of the craft itself. 'Along with his life, he lives a few more lives, every year,' he explained. 'A common man only faces his own challenges. But an actor, along with himself, faces the challenges of his character. So, because of his life, he becomes delicate.'

This, he argued, is what distinguishes an actor's psychological load from that of most professionals — a cumulative emotional weight drawn from every role absorbed over a career.

Spirituality as an Anchor

Tripathi revealed that he has been actively practising spirituality to better understand himself, using it as a counterweight to the intensity that acting demands. He described how spiritual practice has helped him resist the impulse to react instantly to life's highs and lows — a discipline that runs directly counter to what an actor must do on screen.

'In art, it's okay, and is required as a part of the profession,' he said. 'In art, the character is written, and he is supposed to be reactionary. It needs awareness, to know this, to be a witness — I realise that an emotion has come to me, will I react to this emotion or will I respond? Where did this originate from? How does the character think? This is a strange thing that many people don't understand.'

The Contradiction at the Heart of Acting

Tripathi was candid about the tension between spiritual equanimity and the raw emotional availability that acting demands. He suggested that an actor must cultivate enough self-awareness to recognise when a character is 'overpowering them' — a kind of internal watchfulness that spirituality trains. 'An actor has to realise that the character is overpowering them, an emotional turmoil is happening inside them,' he said.

He also drew a clear philosophical line between life and craft: 'Life and acting are two different things. But if you understand life better, you will be able to act better. And to understand life, you don't have to understand acting.'

About 'Parivarik ManuRanjan'

'Parivarik ManuRanjan' is set to stream on SonyLIV from 13 November 2026. The film marks another collaboration for Tripathi and Aditi Rao Hydari, and arrives amid strong audience appetite for content-driven streaming films in India. As one of Hindi cinema's most critically regarded character actors, Tripathi's reflections on the emotional cost of the profession are likely to resonate well beyond the film's promotional context.