13th's Gagan Dev Riar On Meeting Mohit Tyagi, Using His Dialogues In Show: Saw That Honesty - Exclusive

Actor

Gagan Dev Riar has played characters based on real-life people before; his breakthrough role was with Scam 2003: The Telgi Story. With 13th: Some Lessons Aren't Taught in Classrooms , he once again steps into another person's shoes. However, this time, Gagan was able to meet the man he played. Here's what he had to share about meeting Mohit Tyagi who co-founded the JEE/NEET Preparation platform Competishun and appeared on Shark Tank.

Gagan Dev Riar on meeting Mohit Tyagi in Jaipur

In an interview with Zoom, Gagan shared that the whole experience was new for him. Recalling his meeting with Mohit, he said, "I was not aware of [him], based on this subject of engineering and coaching classes. When I went to Jaipur, I met Mohit Tyagi, and I met him in his institute. He gave us the tour, what classes are and how they teach, and everything. It was quite a refreshing experience. It actually took me back to my childhood days when we used to go to classes in our 10th standard or 12th standard to get marks. And personally, I always thought that it was a waste of energy and time."

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The institute tour changed his mind. He added, "Then I saw the love the students have for the teacher. There is something that is missing in our educational system [and] students find it there. Then I saw the honesty of the person who's trying; it was almost like something that he could not get during his childhood when he was a student, and he thinks that student deserved that. You know what you did not get in your life while growing up, and you're giving it back in a way, and that was very heartening to see." ALSO READ: 13th Actor Paresh Pahuja Feels Saiyaara's Success Has Opened Doors For More Musicals: Another Cool Thing | Exclusive

Incorporating Mohit's thoughts into 13th

Gagan used the real MT Sir's ideas in the SonyLIV series. The actor shared, "There are some of the dialogues that I have actually taken. They were not written by Sameer [Mishra], but when I met him, I recorded some of his lines when he was just answering my questions. I used them in the shoot as a character. They were very authentic. They were just not dialogues; they were like real thoughts. That was very nice to experience."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6UlZlGMKJI

The Scam 2003 actor was mindful to be respectful of how Mohit was portrayed in the show and discussed the lines with writer Mishra and director Nishil Sheth. "When you're portraying a real-life character, most of the time as an actor, what happens is you're playing some historical character where you're using your liberty. You don't get to meet them, and it doesn't have a direct impact on their life. But if I say something in the show thinking that this is a character and the person is alive right now and he has a life, you can't make a negative impact on the life of that person. So, actually meeting him was really what opened up the character and the possibilities of this character for me," Gagan concluded.13th: Some Lessons Aren't Taught in Classrooms features Paresh Pahuja as MT Sir's student Ritesh. The Hindi series is now streaming on SonyLIV.