11 Years After Drishyam, Rishab Chadha Has a New Stage

Some characters are meant to be gone in the first half, but Bollywood refuses to let them go. Eleven years after Drishyam released, Rishab Chadha’s Sam is still being discussed, and Drishyam: The Conclusion has brought the case he sparked back into focus. The actor, however, is in a different place.

Who is Rishab Chadha?

Chadha became known as Sam, the on-screen son of Tabu and Rajat Kapoor, in the 2015 Hindi remake of Jeethu Joseph’s Malayalam Drishyam, which starred Mohanlal. In that original version, the character was named Varun Prabhakar and was played by Roshan Basheer.

The 1994-born Mumbai actor has been working since 2007, well before the thriller made him a familiar face. His earlier credits include Khoobsurat (2014) with Sonam Kapoor and Fawad Khan. After Drishyam, he stayed active across formats:

• 2014: Appeared in Khoobsurat before Drishyam.
• 2015: Played Sam in Drishyam.
• 2018: Featured in Lupt.
• Other projects: Best of Luck Nikki, The Suite Life of Karan and Kabir, Aadat Se Majboor and the web series Divorce Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega.

Why Sam still matters

In the first film, Sam is a wealthy and reckless young man whose parents hold influence in Goa. During a college picnic he misbehaves with women in the group. Anju, Vijay and Nandini Salgaonkar’s elder daughter, rejects his advances. He later records her in a bathroom and threatens to leak the video.

When Sam arrives at the Salgaonkar home and behaves inappropriately with Nandini, Anju strikes him on the head with a rod. He dies on the spot. Vijay then covers up the death to protect his family, and the search for Sam’s body drives the franchise forward.

In Drishyam: The Conclusion, the Goa police pull every thread to prove that Vijay killed Sam. Vijay and his family again stay ahead by misleading SP Crime Branch officer Rajveer Tomar, former IG Meera, her husband and SI Laxmikant Gaitonde.

Where Rishab Chadha is now

Rishab has not signed an acting project for the last two years. Instead, he is performing for live audiences through Modern Majnu, a storytelling and poetry setup that lets him connect directly with people. The show runs on select dates, and tickets can be booked on digital platforms.

For fans who know him mainly as Sam, the shift is notable: the actor behind one of Hindi cinema’s most talked-about missing-persons cases is now choosing smaller, live rooms over film sets. In a way, Sam’s afterlife mirrors the franchise’s central obsession: a disappearance that never really ends. Chadha’s move to live storytelling gives the audience a different kind of closure, seeing the face behind the mystery without the screen in between.

Source: The Times of India