Shishir Sharma

Shishir Sharma has spent close to three decades as one of the most reliably employed supporting actors in Hindi film and television. The serial work came first, Ghar Ki Lakshmi Betiyann and Yahaaan Main Ghar Ghar Kheli among it, along with a later run on the web comedy Permanent Roommates, before the film credits began stacking up.

Look at what he actually gets cast as and a job description appears. A brigadier in Raazi. A general in Uri: The Surgical Strike. The head of a government department in Dangal. A defence minister in Fanaa. A senior investigator in Talvar. A professor, a doctor, a newspaper editor. He is the Hindi screen's institution man, the figure on the other side of the desk delivering the decision the protagonist has to live with. It is a narrow brief and he is very good inside it, because he plays procedure rather than authority. His officers sound like men who have filled in this particular form before.

The recent work has loosened. Sharmaji Namkeen and Cobalt Blue hand him domestic parts instead of uniforms, Mission Raniganj put him back in the operations room, and the schedule ahead of him is still busy. The record runs past forty films and serials and continues to grow, which is its own kind of review.