Give him a seemingly small part and yet, Pankaj Tripathi, with his powerful act, will leave a strong impression. The actor has, once again, earned his place in the spotlight with his lawyer act in Hotstar's recently dropped original series, Criminal Justice.

It is the duality of lawyer Madhav Mishra that drew him to the role. "I always preferred to play powerless characters. Most people would ignore the watchman or the driver, but there's a story to tell in each of them. Mishra's character is layered; he has his own crisis to deal with — there is no love in his life, he is sick, and there's a constant internal conflict," says the actor, adding that the character's struggle mirrors his own in real life. "Until this point, it has been a struggle to make casting directors take notice of me."