Named as one of Forbes magazine’s 30 under 30 people to watch in 2015, Jim Sarbh is going places. The theatre actor makes his debut in the movies in Neerja. Ram Madhvani’s biopic, which will be in cinemas on February 19, is based on the true story of the courageous flight attendant who saved the lives of 359 people when Pan Am Flight 73 was hijacked in Karachi in 1986. Sarbh plays one of the Palestinian terrorists who slaughters innocents, including Bhanot (Sonam Kapoor). He has a blink-and-miss appearance in the trailer, but we are sure we will see more of him in the movie.
Sarbh is from one of the most respected families in the art world – he is the grandson of Kali Pundole, who started the Pundole Art Gallery in 1963 in Mumbai. Sarbh fell in love with theatre at the age of 12 after he performed in a production of Romeo and Juliet. He further honed his craft at Emory University in Atlanta, where he decided he wanted to act professionally.
In the few years that he has been in India, Sarbh has made his mark on the Mumbai stage in such plays as Alyque Padamsee’s production of Death of a Salesman and Sunil Shanbag’s Stories in a Song. Sarbh has also directed Bull, an adaptation of Mike Bartlett’s play about office politics. He is translating French dramatist Jean Genet’s The Maids from French into Hindi in order to direct a local version of the celebrated study of power relations.
Sarbh has worked in Kalki Kochein’s The Living Room, for which he received good notices. One of his more recent stage roles was as Gratiano in Vickram Kapadia’s The Merchant of Venice.
Sarbh has also dabbled in online short films such as The Art of Crying, in which he tries to learn voice modulation from roadside vendors.
And he has voiced MTV’s short web series Indiepedia.
He has appeared in the Rajasthan Tourism advertisement Bike.