Delhiite Priyanshu Chatterjee entered Bollywood through the usual route — modelling. After having worked on various modelling assignments, like Levi’s and Wills, Priyanshu caught eyeballs with his debut film Tum Bin in 2001.
His latest, the recently released Rajdhani Express — where he worked alongside Jimmy Shergill and Leander Paes — has portrayed him in the role of a Bengali scriptwriter. Priyanshu says he gave a personalised look to the character. “Luckily, Ashok Kohli (the film’s director) gave me enough freedom to paint the character the way I wanted to, particularly with the language and the diction, and it worked out for me.”
To play the role of a fit middle-aged scriptwriter, Priyanshu dons a lean body but a pair of spectacles. He says his look plus the diet and exercise accompanying it always depend on the role that a particular movie has. “I work according to the kind of character they want me to play,” he says. Though being a former model, he has always believed in “working out and eating right.”
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“During the day, I eat a lot of carbohydrates, but at night I stay away from such stuff,” the commerce graduate from Delhi University gives away his diet secret. A big foodie that he is, Priyanshu likes to work it off as soon as possible to keep fit. His physical exercise “includes a lot of running, functional and aerobic training.”
“I prefer more of outdoor exercises than gyming,” he says. He also believes in “keeping mentally fit through yoga”. Ask him a habit he’d like to get rid of in the new year, Priyanshu is candid, “I smoke, I want to get rid of the habit.”
Visiting Delhi often means a holiday for him. At his parents’ house here, he more often than not follows “a staple parantha diet.”
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“I can’t say no to it. But when I return to Mumbai, I get back to working out hard,” he declares.
Most youth today are health conscious he thinks, and adds happily, “They don’t need any health tips from anyone, they know it all, much better than all of us.”
On what is coming up next, Priyanshu says he is looking forward to Shunyo Awnko that he has just finished shooting for. A multi-lingual film by Goutam Ghosh, it stars Konkona Sen besides him and is set to be released soon nationally.