Behind the camera is arguably Anurag Kashyap’s favourite place in the world. That said, of late, we’ve seen him facing the camera just as much. The filmmaker featured in four releases last year, and will soon be seen in three more — the Tamil action thriller One 2 One, Telugu drama Dacoit: A Love Story, and the Kannada sports drama 8. It looks like the acting bug has bitten him.

“I don’t enjoy acting. I don’t want to have an acting career or be known as a star-actor,” states Kashyap, insisting that filmmaking will always be his true love. “I love making and writing films. The process of filmmaking is in my blood. I am making movies non-stop and I want to continue making them. In my free time, I am also writing,” says Kashyap, whose directorial venture Nishaanchi released in September.

Earlier this year, the director had announced that he had shifted to Bengaluru as he found the Hindi film industry “toxic”. How is Bengaluru treating him? Fabulously, he says. “[When in Mumbai], I was in depression for some time. The transition happened during Kennedy [2023], and I came out of it. Leaving Mumbai changed me a lot.”

He can feel a tangible change, he says. “Bengaluru is beautiful because I am not surrounded by film people or the same conversations that bore me. Here, the conversations are about cinema and not about box-office business. Nobody discusses films, music, and literature anymore [in Mumbai]. The cultural space in Bengaluru is beautiful. I keep acting in South movies and keep looking at scripts to direct. After I complete my acting assignments, we’ll see what happens in 2026.”