Vas Saranga on joining Netflix’s I Will Find You and bringing Agent Dev Chopra to life.
Canadian actor and filmmaker Vas Saranga is starring as Agent Dev Chopra in Netflix’s I Will Find You, the latest gripping adaptation of bestselling author Harlan Coben’s work. With an impressive résumé spanning acclaimed television and film, Saranga continues to establish himself as one of Canada’s most exciting talents.
HOLR caught up with the actor to discuss joining the I Will Find You cast, bringing Agent Dev Chopra to life, and the career journey that led him to one of Netflix’s latest thrillers.
How did you get your start in the industry?
I actually got my start as a filmmaker before I gravitated towards acting. I was obsessed with movies growing up. The Back to the Future trilogy was a huge influence on me, and I spent a lot of time making short films with friends and family. In high school, I was directing student films and constantly putting myself in them as an actor, (mostly because I needed someone to play the roles!) Somewhere along the way, I realized I enjoyed being in front of the camera even more than being behind it.
After that, I started taking acting classes, working with coaches, and auditioning professionally. My first major role was on the TVO series A World of Wonders, and from there opportunities started to build. Like most actors, it wasn’t an overnight thing. It was a lot of training, persistence, and learning on the job.
What was your first reaction when you found out you’d be joining I Will Find You and the Harlan Coben universe?
Excitement, definitely! I’d already seen several of the Harlan Coben adaptations on Netflix and knew they had built a really loyal audience around the world. The scripts were incredibly compelling and I flew through them, which is always a good sign. If I’m reading a script and constantly telling myself “just one more page,” I know there’s something special there.
I was also excited by the caliber of people involved. The actors Sam Worthington, Britt Lower, Milo Ventimiglia, Logan Browning, the showrunner Robert Hull. And of course the author Harlan Coben. And pretty much Netflix itself! I’m a Netflix junkie so it was a no brainer. It felt like one of those projects where all the pieces were coming together in a really exciting way.
How did you approach playing Agent Dev Chopra, and what did you want viewers to understand about him?
One word that kept coming up in the character description was “seasoned.” Dev is a seasoned FBI agent on the Fugitive Task Force, and I just leaned into what I thought that meant. He’s someone who has spent years operating under pressure. He’s seen difficult situations before and doesn’t panic when things get complicated.
What interested me most was making sure he felt human. I didn’t want him to feel like a generic television law enforcement character. I wanted him to feel like a real person who happens to be very good at his job. There’s a professionalism to him, but there’s also a conversational quality and even moments of levity that I really enjoyed bringing to the role.
Thrillers often move at a fast pace. How do you make sure your character still feels real and relatable amid all the suspense?
For me, it always comes back to the human side of the character. The plot may be moving at a hundred miles an hour, but the character is still experiencing events one moment at a time.
I think sometimes the bigger and more complicated the story becomes, the more important it is to focus on simple human behavior. How is this person processing what’s happening? What are they noticing? What are they worried about? How do they feel at any given moment? Really letting the moments unfold and the scene take shape as we’re shooting. Basically “finding it in the performance”. If you stay connected to those things, the audience tends to stay connected to the character regardless of how many twists and turns the story takes.
You’ve worked across everything from major TV series to independent projects. Looking back, what experiences have had the biggest impact on you as an actor?
A few projects stand out for different reasons. Aaron Stone was one of the first projects that gave me real momentum and confidence as a young actor. Orphan Black taught me patience because I’d auditioned for that show multiple times over many seasons before finally booking a role. It was a reminder that sometimes the right opportunity comes along when the timing is right.
More recently, You’re My Hero had a huge impact on me because I got to spend two seasons developing a character and collaborating closely with an incredible cast and creative team. And now I Will Find You has been another important experience because I had the chance to work alongside actors whose work I’ve admired for years. Every project teaches you something different if you’re paying attention.
You’re an actor, filmmaker, and coach. How do those different roles influence one another, and what have they taught you about storytelling?
They all feed into each other in really interesting ways. Acting teaches me empathy and perspective because you’re constantly trying to understand people and their experiences. Filmmaking teaches me how all the pieces come together to tell a story, from writing to directing to editing. Coaching makes me articulate ideas that might otherwise remain purely intuitive.
One of the biggest things they’ve taught me is that storytelling is ultimately about people, the characters. Whether you’re acting in a scene, directing one, writing one, or helping another actor prepare for one, you’re trying to understand human behavior and actualize a person that an audience can connect with emotionally, and navigate the story with. The tools may be different, but the goal is always the same.
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Published by HOLR Magazine