(L-R) Imtiaz Ali, Nishikant Kamat, Rajkumar Hirani, Sudhir Mishra, Aditi Rao Hydari, ... Chhabra, Anurag Kashyap, Suniel Shetty, Aditya Pancholi, Raj Kumar Rao

(L-R) Imtiaz Ali, Nishikant Kamat, Rajkumar Hirani, Sudhir Mishra, Aditi Rao Hydari, Mukesh Chhabra, Anurag Kashyap, Suniel Shetty, Aditya Pancholi, RajKummar Rao

Bollywood ace directors including Rajkumar Hirani, Anurag Kashyap, Imtiaz Ali and others, National Award winning actor Rajkummar Rao and the young heartthrobs of B-town-Sushant Singh Rajput, Sidharth Malhotra and many others, came forward in full force at the inauguration of casting director, Mukesh Chhabra’s studio, the ‘Mukesh Chhabra Casting Company.’

The 32 year old Chhabra who became the most sought after casting director with successful films like Gangs Of Wasseypur 1 & 2, Love Aaj Kal, Rockstar, Highway, D-Day, Kai Po Che, National Award winner films, Chillar Party and Shahid, has taken a big step ahead by launching a casting studio which aims to offer acting and casting solutions under one roof.

The one-of-a-kind casting studio has space to audition 50 actors at a time. It has three audition rooms and a dedicated hall for conducting theatre workshops.

Chhabra, who is known to have introduced many new talents in Hindi films says, “It was my dream to have a casting studio which is accessible to all, where any talented actor can just walk in and give an audition.” “This dream wouldn’t have become a reality without the unflinching support of all the directors who believed in me and of course, my dedicated team” he adds.

Chhabra who worked as an actor and teacher with ‘Theatre in Education’ company, which is affiliated with National School of Drama (NSD) will conduct weekend workshops and monthly workshops of 10 days at his studio. The monthly workshop will have 20 students in each batch.  “Apart from my film workshops, I will also be conducting acting workshops with new talent which will be free of cost for the initial few months” he adds.

The first weekend-acting-workshop will be conducted by theatre actor Manoj Bajpai. The Gangs Of Wasseypur actor says, “Acting is not about acting. Acting is about being. And that is what will be the focus of my workshop.” “I am not an easy teacher and my expectations are pretty high” he warns.

 “I always felt the need for such a studio where post auditions an actor could do some workshops and hone his/her skills and thus have planned such a set up” says Chhabra who has done acting workshops for films like Kai Po Che, Shahid, Aashiqui 2 and upcoming films Ek Villian, Hero and Fitoor and mentored several upcoming stars.

Chhabra has an impressive line up of releases this year including Rajkumar Hirani’s P.K, and Anurag Kashyap’s Bombay Velvet, Ugly and Vishal Bhardwaj’s Haidar and many more.