With OTT, the world has opened up for people!
Challenges bring out the best in human beings, and especially in my case I’m blessed that it worked well. What happened in 2020 lockdown is that everyone was at home, and the only one form of entertainment available to them was OTT. After a point, even TV shows became old. How many comedies or mythologies can one watch? The OTT boom had already begun earlier and we had seen how well many previous shows had done.
The world has opened up for people here (on OTT), you’ve a lot of brave stories, a lot more characters, today you have ensemble pieces coming to the fore. Many actors you’ve only seen in big films, TV or theatre, are suddenly coming this way. I don’t think anyone expected it. They knew there is hidden potential in these actors but it was never utilised to the maximum. And it is where I think my career and life as an artist, also saw sort of an upliftment.
OTT has put me in an interesting situation at the moment. All my three shows in 2020 – Mafia, Aarya and A Suitable Boy, were all different roles. People were like ‘you are on every platform’ but this is not something I’d planned.
On the notion that you are stereotyped, like if once you play a hero’s friend in films, you get the same kind of roles again and again, I’d half agree to such pattern not being there on OTT platforms anymore. I had already moved on from that side casting. I’ve done films where I played different characters. In Sui Dhaaga (2018), I was a baddie, in Pataakha (2018), one of the sweet husbands. These are very different characters and not the roles which are just sidelined or can be ignored as ‘the guy in yellow or pink shirt’.
With content evolving, we were done with role of hero’s friend long back and even in films I don’t think ‘hero’s friend’ anymore exists. Some 10-15 years back, we’d that idea, and North India has a lovely term for this – the side actor.
Fortunately, the roles that I got to do, all of these emerged as different characters on their own. I was already living that reality. But people only realised it gradually and especially in the last eight months, after those three shows. It became evident to many that this guy can play a good guy’s part as well. For me these shows brought out the fact to others that this actor can perform many things and there’s more to him than meets the eye.
On these platforms you have a lot of brave stories, a lot more characters and today you also have ensemble pieces coming to the fore.
NAMIT DAS,
Actor