Actor Nilay Mitash, currently starring in the comedy-drama web series Hello… Hum Bol Rahe Hain on WAVES OTT, shared insights into his personal and professional evolution—from growing up in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, to leaving a corporate tech job to pursue acting.
Talking about his character, Pappu Prasad Pandey, he said, “Hello… Hum Bol Rahe Hain begins with something as ordinary as a phone call, but gradually opens up into something much bigger. Pappu is a carefree village boy living one day at a time until love, politics, and responsibility enter his life. He isn’t someone who sets out to become a hero—life simply keeps happening to him, and he has to figure out what to do with everything that comes his way.”
He talks vividly about the prep and challenges of playing Pappu. “There were two parallel versions of Pappu I had to portray—the younger, carefree guy and the present-day version who is slowly learning his responsibilities. To play the carefree Pappu, I actually had to go back and rediscover a part of myself I left behind during my college days. It became more of a de-learning exercise than a learning one. The second challenge was much more personal. The carefree Pappu is actually a version of me that I think I left behind somewhere along the way.”
On working with established actors like Yashpal Sharma, Daya Shankar Pandey, Chitrashi Rawat and others, he called the journey surreal. “When you work alongside actors who have been doing this for so many years, you realise that there is always something new to observe — the way they approach a scene, the smallest choices they make and how effortlessly they can bring a character to life.”
On transitioning from IT to acting, he averred, “I completed my engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology and joined Infosys in Bangalore. My path shifted after I lost my mother to cancer and later miraculously walked away from a serious auto-rickshaw accident. That day, risk acquired a very different meaning for me. I realised life could change without permission, so I resigned from Infosys, moved to Mumbai, and joined the Barry John Acting Studio.”
Talking about his passion for acting, he said, “As a child, I was naturally theatrical—and let’s be honest, a bit dramatic too! I was captivated by movies, loved stepping into different characters, and found myself drawn to anything that involved performing. Although I never participated in theater as a kid, it felt like being theatrical was just part of who I was. I grew up watching a lot of Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, as many of us did. However, at that age, I wasn’t thinking about acting as an art form; I was simply a member of the audience. I would watch these heroes on screen, and for a few hours after the credits rolled, I found myself wanting to be just like them.”
On audience response, he said, “One thing that really makes me smile is when someone refers to me as Pappu instead of Nilay! For an actor, that means the audience has stopped seeing the actor and started seeing the character.”
Looking ahead, Nilay is currently shooting an upcoming feature film alongside Chunky Panday, Vrajesh Hirjee, and Nyra Banerjee, while also developing two original screenplays.
