No to ‘I’ll never say that TV, I had made and it mistake once me’ went against

RPohit Bose Roy has no qualms about accepting that he is a “TV product” and has immense respect for the medium that gave wings to his acting aspirations. Thus, the actor says there’s no reason for him to ever say no to TV. “TV has made me, and I can never deny its contribution to my career. Whatever I’m today is because of my show Swabhimaan,” he continues, “Even when I was doing all these big films, some of my friends used to shy away from TV, saying, ‘Nahi yaar, lighting achhi nahi hoti, such garish sets, you don’t look good’. But, I never thought on those lines. Every medium has a different demand, you’ve to melt into the medium.” The actor, whose last TV show was Sanjivani, believes that no actor is bigger than the medium. “I’ll continue to do TV. I won’t quit any medium. I’ve made that mistake once in my life during the Shootout at Lokhandwala (2007). I had said I might not do TV for a while and everyone took it to heart and it went against me,” recalls the actor, who has done films such as Fashion (2008), Kaabil (2017) and Paltan (2018). Having spent 20 years in showbiz and worked in TV, theatre, web and films, Roy has always put efforts in choosing stories that help him grow as an artiste. He’ll be seen next in Sanjay Gupta’s Mumbai Saga besides a web series. “My character needs to drive the project, otherwise why am I doing it? I’ve to live up to my reputation and audiences’ expectations. Anyway, this isn’t an easy place to survive,” says the actor, hinting at the ongoing discussions around biases in Bollywood. “Given my over 25-year run in the industry, I have friends, who don’t treat me as an outsider. But, I consider myself an outsider. I don’t believe in groups and haven’t been part of any camp. I agree, opportunities that an insider gets, an outsider does not,” he ends. Shreya Mukherjee

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