He harbours a fascination for playing insane, powerful characters like Hamlet and Oedipus. After meeting actor Chandan Roy Sanyal with his wild hair and mad energy, it’s not hard to see why he would be perfectly cast for such roles. “It’s not a violent streak,” he laughs, “it’s just something these characters have about them.” Currently, he’s busy with his most controlled performance to date as Lysander in Tim Supple’s A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream. Friend Quasar Padamsee gave him his first break with a part in Romeo and Juliet. Next followed Alyque’s P-Dialogues. A fan of directors Pedro Almodóvar and Werner Herzog and the band Radiohead, Chandan de-stresses by cooking and shopping. “I splurge on shoes – they tell you so much about a person,” says the maverick as he readies for the release of his two films, Tarkash and Picnic.