Veteran actor Satish Shah handed away on October 25, 2025, on the age of 74 attributable to kidney failure. The actor will likely be certainly remembered for his iconic roles that he portrayed on-screen. Nonetheless, the actor’s journey to stardom was removed from simple. Satish Shah confronted years of rejection earlier than carving his area of interest as one in every of Indian cinema’s most cherished character actors, regardless of being a graduate of the celebrated Movie and Tv Institute of India (FTII). In an interview with Komal Nahta on Aur Ek Kahani, Satish candidly spoke about his early days in Mumbai, when being an FTII graduate earned him “respect however no actual work.” He recalled, “Once I would say I’ve come from the institute, I might get a little bit of respect, however that’s about it. There was no different benefit in anyway.”
‘I used to be not that good wanting’
The actor humorously but in an emotional approach, mirrored on how his appears to be like grew to become a barrier in his preliminary years.“Again then, actors had been typically picked simply by taking a look at black-and-white photographs. That system didn’t fairly work for me — I wasn’t the handsome, hero-type face they had been searching for. I knew I wasn’t the subsequent Shammi Kapoor, and actually, I by no means aimed to be one.” he stated.Sharing a lighter second, Shah as soon as recalled visiting a producer who, upon listening to he was from FTII, assumed he studied movie route or modifying — not performing. When requested to depart his {photograph}, Shah declined, quipping that photos had been costly and he knew the producer would by no means name again.
‘My persona was my downside then’
In a 2023 interview with CNN-News18, Shah elaborated on how he didn’t match into any of the trade’s standard classes. “I used to be too tall and well-built to be a comic, had too delicate a face to be a villain, and wasn’t conventionally handsome as a hero,” he stated. “Every time I went to satisfy folks, they typically assumed I used to be a cinematographer, an editor, or a director — by no means an actor. My persona itself labored in opposition to me again then.”