Sanjay Mishra & Pankaj Tripathi Movies Together List — 6 Films

The shape of the work

The 2010s account for 83% of everything they made together. The 2010s belonged to Masaan ; the 2020s to Bachchhan Paandey. Sanjay Mishra acted in every film; Pankaj Tripathi acted in all of them.

Partnership facts

• They first met on the set of Masaan (2015), but almost didn't share a scene. Director Neeraj Ghaywan originally wrote their characters to never cross paths. The two actors pushed for a joint scene, so Ghaywan added the now-famous encounter at the ghat where Tripathi's sadhu casually schools Mishra's grieving father.
• In Anaarkali Of Aarah (2017), Mishra played the lecherous college principal while Tripathi played the local don. They deliberately swapped their usual energy: Mishra dialed down his comic timing to be menacing, while Tripathi underplayed his menace to be funny. The director said they rehearsed each other's lines to get the rhythm right.
• Their back-to-back hits in 2018-19 (Bhaiyyaji Superhitt and Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota) convinced casting directors that two middle-aged character actors could open a film without a single mainstream star. Directly inspired by this, Amazon Prime greenlit the series 'Gulabo Sitabo' (2020) specifically as a two-hander for Mishra and Tripathi.
• During the disastrous shoot of Bhaiyyaji Superhitt (2018), which got a 2.2 rating, the two spent every evening in their hotel room watching old Govinda comedies. They made a pact: never again sign a film without reading the full script together. They've kept that pact — both turned down three separate offers in 2020 because the other said no.
• "Sanjay bhai doesn't act. He just shows up and becomes the person. I had to work twice as hard in every scene because he made it look so easy. I'd tell him, 'Yaar, thoda effort dikhao, mera bhi bhala ho jayega.'" — Pankaj Tripathi, on working with Sanjay Mishra in Masaan, at the 2015 Mumbai Film Festival.