Roy Mondal

At a young age, Roy was instilled with an appreciation of literature and film; hailing from a West Bengali family, as a child he was introduced to the films of Satyajit Ray, which shaped a lifelong fascination of cinema.

Roy credits the performances of Homayoun Ershadi in Abbas Kiarostami’s “Taste of Cherry”, Toshiro Mifune in “High and Low”, James Dean in Elia Kazan’s “East of Eden”, and Dennis Hopper in David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet” as pivotal performances.

He characterizes Gus Van Sant’s “My Own Private Idaho” as the film that moved him to desire to be an actor – fascinated by River Phoenix’s performance and adjunctly a revelatory interest in Shakespeare, the seed had been planted.

Though classical literature holds a dear place in his heart, he primarily was captured by the works of Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, and Hunter S. Thompson- the tales of revelry struck a chord inside his soul. Beguiled by the manic prose, the lecherous tales of miscreants and vagabonds, he became enamored by the spirit of those who chose to live outside of the boundaries of societal norms.