Actor-model Ankur Bhatia is playing Bosco in the upcoming remake of the 1973 action film, Zanjeer . Playing second fiddle to villain Prakash Raj, the man will also be seen in the Telugu version of the film called Toofan . For a man who started out as an actuary in financial companies and has also written serious scripts, that’s a total U-turn. “It was an amazing experience! Zanjeer is a huge film, so it had giant sets and a lot of people and it was so much fun being on the sets. Action was new to me. Firing bullets, high-speed chase sequences and fights made every day a new experience,” says Ankur. He adds that he still writes stories and creates characters and sketches as it keeps his mind relaxed and occupied.
After acquiring a diploma in acting from the New York Film Academy, Ankur bagged debutant director Payal Sethi’s Mira Nair-produced Grant St. Shaving Co . The film did the festival circuits. In 2012, he won the Best Actor Commendation Award at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts Film Festival in New York for the movie Coconut Grove , where he played a waiter. Now the man has also completed shooting an untitled Hollywood film, directed by Shiva Bajpai in New York, where he plays the lead. The film is inspired by the Galleon Group Scandal involving South Asian bankers and consultants in New York and also stars Poorna Jagannathan of Delhi Belly fame.
Ankur will be seen in another Telugu film Dilunoodu , which stars Puri Jagannadh’s brother, Sairam Shankar. The film is directed by Jaya Ravindra and produced by Soudamini Creations. In the film, he plays the lead villain who hails from a hardcore Punjabi family.
On his short film script Coming Home, which he recently sold to Anil Kapoor, reportedly for his son Harshvardhan Kapoor, Ankur says, “Though I am not sure what his plans are, I am sure he will do something exceptional with it.” It will also reportedly star Katrina Kaif’s sister Isabel.
