Sambhaji Sasane is not new to holding a screen, but Bol Bol Rani asks something different of him. In the film, he takes on three separate characters, Lohar, Shahir, and Dravya, each built from a different world, a different body, a different silence.
He said, “I play three characters in Bol Bol Rani, Lohar, Shahir, and Dravya. Each lives in a different world, carries a different body, a different silence, and a different want.”
With the film already out and conversations building online, he’s careful not to give too much away. “Audiences are already discussing the film online, some even posting spoilers, so I’ll guard the mystery. Discovering who these three men are is half the ticket,” he said.
He traced the idea back to his childhood, watching two of Indian cinema’s biggest names pull off double roles. “As a boy, I watched Dilip Kumar sahab in Ram Aur Shyam and Kamal Haasan sir in Apoorva Sagodharargal and thought, One day, just once, let me play two characters in one film,” he said.
Bol Bol Rani, as he puts it, went further than that childhood wish. “Life did one better. Too early, and too generously, it gave me three,” he said.
Sambhaji shot to popularity playing Papdya in the BhadiPa web series B.E. Rojgaar, and followed it up with Suraj in the 2026 romantic drama Rubaab. But Bol Bol Rani marks his move from the OTT space to a full theatrical release, and he says the shift isn’t in the prep, it’s in what happens once the lights go down.
“The preparation doesn’t change. Theatre taught me there are no second takes, and I prepare for every medium with that discipline. What changes is the night itself. OTT gives you reach, but the theatre gives you a heartbeat. You hear people react to your work in real time, and there’s nothing like it,” he said.
He connects that feeling to where his own journey with theatre began. “A theatrical release was the dream from the days I was staging plays at Ganpati pandals in Pune, doing lights, costumes, among other things. So, walking into a cinema hall and seeing these three characters on that screen is surreal,” he said.
Both his previous roles, he added, had already set a high bar for him. “Papdya got enormous love, and that set a high bar. Suraj got immense love in Rubaab too,” he said.
To gauge how audiences were actually responding, Sambhaji did something most actors wouldn’t admit to. “I sneaked into some theatres to see people’s reactions because I love doing it. It gives you a real reality check at times. I saw people getting engaged, curious, and anxious in theatres,” he said.
That anxiety, he says, never fully goes away, but neither does the payoff. “There’s anxiety every single time something releases. But when the calls started coming, with people talking specifically about the work, I was overwhelmed. The anxiety is the price. Moments like this are the reward,” he concluded.
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