" Minutes before entering the stage I often think of quitting" -- Tropa

Illustration: Mustafa Zaman

With well-known actors as parents was it easy to set foot in the media world?
It was harder than one might imagine! Far from being a piece of cake! I had to convince two sets of people for any role--the director and also my parents. There were times when my parents did not allow me to play certain roles simply because they thought people might think that I'm getting an extra edge not because of my merit but because of my 'family connections'. Mainly for this reason, I've lost the opportunities of doing quite a few memorable characters and I felt deprived.

How do you balance your time between office and theatre?
That's easy. I work on a very limited number of TV plays, that too, if the shooting takes place on holidays. As for theatre, the rehearsals are held mostly in the evenings when I am usually free. I lend my voice to TV commercials every now and then. However, I am more into creative direction and I enjoy every bit of it.

What is the most outrageous thing you have done so far?
Outrageous is probably the last adjective I would describe myself! But one shocking event was during my Bachelors and Masters exams when I had been burning midnight oil to make sure I didn't fail. It came as a thunderbolt when I learnt that I had secured a first class in both and had topped the list in Masters from the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism.

Who is the real Tropa?
I am basically a nervous wreck and an introvert! To some extent, I'm a perfectionist. I even worry how my co-artists would perform on stage and other trivial matters. I think my directors would have a fit if they knew how many times, minutes before entering the stage I had thought of quitting.

Any goof-ups while staging a play?
During stage plays giggling is perpetual; nothing unusual about it. But during the staging of Antigone, my co-actor Khairul Anam Shobuj totally forgot his lines and looked blankly at me. It was a 45-minute dialogue and we were standing very close to the audience.

It seemed that time stood still as he was struggling to remember his lines. After sometime I heard him faintly say in pure Barisal dialect "kissu hoibo na- Kw" (don't bother just say the lines). Amidst pin drop silence even the viewers could hear him. After this I uttered a few lines and he was back on track again.

Are you picky about characters you play?
Very much so. Even with so many TV channels, we don't have enough scope to do quality work. I feel that our predecessors were more fortunate. There were fewer plays and only one channel. Quality was the prerequisite. Now because of over-exposure, the audience hardly remembers a certain TV character.

A movie that moved you in the recent times?
The movie Black had a tremendous impact on me. While donning the role of a mute and blind girl, a girl with similar disabilities assisted Rani Mukherjee for several weeks. That is how she got under the skin of the character. Directors of timeless movies give their heart and soul towards creating a classic.

Dreams ahead...
I live in the present. I like to take into my stride what comes naturally.