Neeraj Kabi

Neeraj Kabi is an Indian film and theatre actor, theatre director, and acting coach known for his works in International films and Hindi cinema, theatre, and television.[1][2]

Neeraj Kabi
Born	March 12, 1968 (age 52) Jamshedpur, Bihar then, India
Nationality	India
Occupation	Film and Theatre actor Theatre director
Years active	1996–present
Awards	Best Actor at the 4th Sakhalin International Film Festival, Russia Best Actor for Cinematic Excellence at the 4th Jagran Film Festival Newsmakers Achievers’ Award for Best Actor for his contribution to the Indian theatre and cinema

Early life

Neeraj Kabi was born on 12 March 1968 in Jamshedpur, Bihar then (Nowdays in Jharkhand). His zodiac sign is Pisces. He did his schooling from Loyola School, Jamshedpur. Later, he did a diploma in computer science from Symbiosis College, Pune.

Personal life

His father’s name is Tushar Kabi, and his mother’s name is Zarin Kabi. He has one brother, Partha Kabi and sister Radhika. He is married to the fashion designer, Deepali Kosta, and the couple is blessed with a daughter, Saptakshi Kabi.

Career

Neeraj Kabi is a self-taught actor, director, trainer who is working towards building a Theatre and Film Residency involved in performance, directing, training and research.[3] The techniques he uses are his own discoveries and experiments that he has been working on for many years to evolve his skill of acting in films and theatre.[4]

Since the last two decades he has been working as a professional actor with renowned national and international theatre and film directors. As a theatre director he's been exploring the concept of collaborating Indian traditional artistes with urban actors to interpret Indian and Global theatre texts. Neeraj has travelled across the country since 1996 to conduct theatre and acting workshops for actors, children and other industries. As theatre and films deal with advanced levels of behavioural sciences which can be life changing, these workshops are based on the foundations of deep explorations of theatre philosophies, theatre sciences and theatre arts.

Neeraj began work as a professional theatre actor in 1998 in Mumbai. He has performed in major or lead roles in plays by Shakespeare (as Banquo), Tom Stoppard (as Hamlet), Moliere (as Sganarelle), Marivaux (as Harlequin), Chekov (as Gurov & Chekov), Oscar Wilde (as King Herod), Ibsen (as Tesman), Margurite Duras (as Peter Morgan), Florian zeller [ Pierre] amongst others and has worked with International and Indian directors such as Jean Jacques Bellot and Eric Vigner from France, Gil Alon from Israel, Rene Migliaccio from USA and with Atul Kumar, Rehaan Engineer and Naseeruddin Shah from India.

His theatre production of Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' which he directed and produced in 2006 with support from the British Council Division of Mumbai, was performed at The Nehru National Theatre Festival in Mumbai, the National School of Drama's Bharat Rang Mahotsav and opened at the Kala Ghoda Festival in Mumbai, the same year. The production involved actors from Mumbai and original artistes from Indian traditions of Dhrupad singing and Yakshagana dance-drama.

Neeraj's work in cinema began in 1997 with the film "The Last Vision",[5] a feature film directed by Mr. A.K. Bir and produced by the NFDC which won a national award in 1998 and made it to the competition section of Cairo and Singapore International Film Festivals.[5] Thereafter, he performed in the lead role as an Indian monk in Anand Gandhi's hugely acclaimed international award winning feature film, "Ship of Theseus". (BEST ACTOR - Jury Special Mention at the 4th Jagran Film Festival, 2013)[6] (BEST ACTOR at the 4th Sakhalin International Film Festival, Russia).

He played various distinctive roles, from performing as Mahatma Gandhi in Shyam Benegal's television series, 'Samvidhaan', to a Villain in Dibakar Banerjee's "Detective Byomkesh Bakshy" (Yash Raj Films) and the role of a convicted father in "Talvar", based on a true life story directed by Meghna Gulzar and produced by Vishal Bharadwaj. (Nominations for ACTING at Sony Guild Awards, Zee Cine Awards, Stardust Awards in 2016) (Newsmakers Achievers' Award for BEST ACTOR). He's also been a part of multiple web-series projects for Netflix, Amazon and others. He performed as DCP Parulkar in a Netflix Original, 'Sacred Games'. (BEST ACTOR in a Supporting Role at the Indian Television Academy Awards in 2019) (Nomination at the Asian Academy Creative Awards in Singapore). He also won BEST ACTOR in a Supporting Role at the Indywood Academy Awards in Hyderabad for his performance in the feature film, 'Hichki' (Yash Raj Film Productions). His latest Lead Role performance as a Romantic Actor in an Indo-German Feature film called "Once Again" was honoured by the Times Now 2019 edition of Power Brands: Bollywood Film Journalist's Award with the title of "Editor's Choice BEST ACTOR".

Neeraj's latest feature film "Raahgir" directed by the legendary Goutam Ghosh premiered at the Busan International Film festival in October, 2019.

He has also been performing in very different genres of web-series projects lately. Webseries "Paatal Lok" (streaming on Amazon Prime) unravels his acting prowess.

In an interview, he shared the story of his struggling days in the film industry, he said “Just nothing worked. Nobody called me. It went on and on, endlessly, relentlessly… I’ve [taken up jobs such as] production work, AD, spot boy, all kinds of things. I was the junior copywriter in certain ad agencies. I used to sell books from door to door for many, many years. I gave tuitions, home to home, all over the city. All kinds of tuitions: elocution, speech, mathematics, English. And that’s where I learned a very important thing in my life: humility. My ego got crushed because I was pulped to the ground by everything that was happening to me. You never [imagine] that doors would be slammed on your face, you will be abused, you will be pushed, you will be kicked, so many things will happen to you. And, not for one year, two years, but for ten, 15, 18 long years. That’s where the survival issue came in, and I started to teach [acting]. Because when you get so abused all the time, you lose faith in yourself. And, you think, ‘If you don’t get out now, you’ll fall sick.’ Because you can’t take it every single day of your life.”

Awards

• Best Actor at the 4th Sakhalin International Film Festival, Russia, in the International competition section in 2014 for his performance in Ship of Theseus[7]
• Best Actor [Jury Special Mention] for his performance in the internationally acclaimed and celebrated film Ship of Theseus in recognition of Cinematic Excellence at the 4th Jagran Film Festival, 2013[8]
• In May 2015, the NBC honoured Neeraj Kabi with the Newsmakers Achievers' Award for Best Actor for his silent and steady contribution to Indian theatre and cinema.
• Best Actor in a supporting role at the ITA awards for Sacred Games in 2019
• Best Actor in a supporting role at the Indywood Academy awards 2019 for Hichki
• Best Actor (Editor's Choice) at the Times Now 2019 Edition of Power Brands: Bollywood Film Journalist's awards for Once Again

Nominations

• Nominated for Best Actor in a negative role for Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! at the IBNLive Movie Awards 2016
• Nominated for Best Actor in a negative role for Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! at the Zee Cine Awards 2016
• Nominated for Best Actor in a negative role (Readers Choice) for Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! at the Stardust Awards 2016
• Nominated for most promising newcomer (Male) for Ship of Theseus at the 20th Annual Screen Awards 2015
• Nominated for Best Actor in a supporting role for Talvar at the 11th Sony Guild Awards 2015
• Nominated for Best Actor in a supporting role for Sacred Games at the Asian Academy Creative Awards 2019 in Singapore

Filmography

Films

Year	Film	Role	Director	Producer	Language	Awards and Nominations
1997	The Last Vision (Shesha Drushti)	Sangram (lead)	A.K. Bir	National Film Development Corporation	Oriya	National Award for Best film
2012	Ship of Theseus	Maitreya	Anand Gandhi[9]	Sohum Shah	English, Hindi	Best Actor at the 4th Sakhalin International Film Festival, Russia Best Actor [Jury Special Mention] at the 4th Jagran Film Festival, 2013 Nominated for most promising newcomer (Male) at the 20th Annual Screen Awards 2015
2013	Monsoon Shootout	Inspector Khan	Amit Kumar	Guneet Monga, Trevor Ingman, Martijn de Grunt	Hindi	Nominated for Golden Camera award at Cannes Film Festival Nominated for Audience Choice Award at Chicago International Film Festival
2014	Gandhi of the Month	Mr. Giri	Kranti Kanade	Sanjay Singh Ssf	English, Hindi
2015	Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!	Dr. Guha/Yang Guang	Dibakar Banerjee	Aditya Chopra, Dibakar Banerjee	Hindi	Nominated for Best Actor in a negative role at the IBNLive Movie Awards 2016 Nominated for Best Actor in a negative role at the Zee Cine Awards 2016 Nominated for Best Actor in a negative role (Readers Choice) at the Stardust Awards 2016
2015	Talvar	Dr. Tandon	Meghna Gulzar	Vishal Bhardwaj, Vineet Jain	Hindi	Nominated for Best Actor in a supporting role at the 11th Sony Guild Awards 2015
2015	35 mm (short film)	Guru	Chandan Roy Sanyal		Hindi
2017	Viceroy's House	Mahatma Gandhi	Gurinder Chadha	Paul Mayeda Berges, Gurinder Chadha, Deepak Nayar	English
2017	Gali Guliyan	Liakat	Dipesh Jain	Dipesh Jain, Shuchi Jain	Hindi	Finalists at Sundance screenwriting lab, 2015 Won the Grand Jury Prize at MAMI Film Festival, 2017
2017	Tabeer (post-production)	Lieutenant General	Nirang Desai	Deep Trivedi	Hindi
2017	The Hungry	Arun Kumar	Bornila Chatterjee	Tanaji Dasgupta, Kurban Kassam	English, Hindi
2018	Hichki	Prof Wadia	Siddharth Malhotra[9]	Yash Raj Films	Hindi, English	Best Actor in a supporting role at the Indywood Academy Awards 2019
2018	Once Again	Amar	Kanval Sethi	Leis Bagdach, Sanjay Gulati, Arno Krimmer, Alan McAlex, Ajay Rai, Holm Taddiken	Hindi	Best Actor (Editor's Choice) at the Times Now 2019 Edition of Power Brands: Bollywood Film Journalist's awards
2019	Raahgir - The Wayfarers	Chopat Lal	Goutam Ghose	Amit Agarwal	Hindi
2019	Laal Kaptaan	Sadullah Khan	Navdeep Singh	Eros International, Colour Yellow Productions	Hindi
2019	Line of Descent	Siddharth Sinha	Rohit Batra	Rohit Karn Batra, Guy J. Louthan	Hindi	Movie released on ZEE5
2020	Freedom		Dibakar Banerjee	Netflix Original	Hindi

Television and Web Series

Year	Show	Role	Language	Network	Awards & Nominations
2014	Samvidhaan	Mahatma Gandhi	Hindi	Rajya Sabha TV
2018-19	Sacred Games	DCP Parulkar	Hindi	Netflix	Best Actor in a supporting role at the ITA awards 2019 Nominated for Best Actor in a supporting role at the Asian Academy Creative Awards 2019 in Singapore
2019	The Final Call	V. Krishnamurthy	English, Hindi	ZEE5
2019	Taj Mahal	Akhtar Baig	Hindi	Netflix
2019	The Bear	Khader Khan	English/Hindi	Apple TV
2020	Paatal Lok	Sanjeev Mehra	English, Hindi	Amazon Prime Video
2020	Avrodh	Shailesh Malviya	English, Hindi	Sony Liv

Theatre

Year	Play	Writer	Role	Language	Director/Producer
1998	Macbeth	William Shakespeare	Banquo, English Doctor	English	Salim Ghouse - Phoenix Players
2000	Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead	Tom Stoppard	Hamlet	English	The Company Theatre
2000	Love is the best remedy	Moliere	Sganarelle	English	Jean Jacques Bellot (from France)
2001	The game of love and chance	Marivaux	Harlequin	English	Rene Migliaccio (from USA)
2003	Lady with Lapdog (play adaptation)	Anton Chekov	Gurov and Chekov	English	Atul Kumar (The Company Theatre)
2004	Salome	Oscar Wilde	King Herod	English	Gil Alon (from Israel)
2004	Aham	Experimental work by 13 young workshop actors	-	English, Hindi	Neeraj Kabi
2005	Hamlet	William Shakespeare and Harivansh Rai Bachchan	-	English, Hindi	Neeraj Kabi
2010	Hedda Gabler	Henrik Ibsen	Tesman	English	Rehaan Engineer / The Company Theatre
2013	Gates to India song	Marguerite Duras	Peter Morgan	English	Eric Vigner (from France)
2017	The Father	Florian Zeller	Pierre	English	Naseeruddin Shah / Motley

References

1. "Neeraj Kabi". IMDb. Archived from the original on 12 April 2018. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
2. "I am hungry for good work: 'Talvar' actor Neeraj Kabi". The Indian Express. 6 September 2015. Archived from the original on 6 October 2015. Retrieved 5 October 2015.
3. Ghosal, Sharmistha (12 July 2019). "Actor Neeraj Kabi on living his dream in Goutam Ghose's Hindi film, Raahgir". Indulge Express. Archived from the original on 11 October 2020.
4. "4 underrated theatre actors you'd love to watch on stage!". Blogbuster Tata Sky.
5. Khan, Murtaza Ali (4 September 2018). "Neeraj Kabi and his art of transformation". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 11 October 2020.
6. Dundoo, Sangeetha Devi (3 August 2013). "The monk and the producer". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 21 June 2014.
7. Korablinov, Alexander (2 September 2014). "Ship of Theseus wins Grand Prix at Sakhalin film festival". Archived from the original on 7 August 2018. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
8. "Curtains fall on 4th Jagran Film Festival". mid-day. 30 September 2013. Archived from the original on 7 August 2018. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
9. "'I don't want to be easily recognised when I come on screen'". The Indian Express. 2 April 2018. Archived from the original on 7 August 2018. Retrieved 7 August 2018.