Actor Shahid Kapoor, who was last seen in Jersey gears up for his grand OTT debut in Raj & DK’s upcoming show Farzi. The actor will be seen playing a con artist in the show that is slated to release on February 10 on a digital platform. Farzi also stars Raashii Khanna, and Vijay Sethupathi. The Free Press Journal caught up with the actor for an exclusive chat. Excerpts:
While Southern actors are the flavour of the season, with Vijay in the show, how competitive do you feel?
I fondly call Vijay sir Makkal Selvin because he has the personality that suits this name. It’s such a beautiful term for him and it's been a privilege to work with him. Although we didn’t have much in the show together, we are always running parallel to each other. Sometimes, we crossed tracks in the show.
Go on…
While we were promoting, I found his mind so interesting. He is truly an actor at heart and I wish to do much more work with him and I wish to learn from him. I think there’s a lot one can learn from his phenomenal artistry and it's a privilege to have him on a show. So, I don't think that there is much competition.
Raj & DK created one of the most successful shows Family Man on the OTT sphere. Was that the reason to collaborate with them on Farzi?
Raj & DK have established themselves on the digital platform and people love their storytelling in the long format very much and I wanted to work with them. They offered me something which was exciting and when they told me Vijay sir is gonna be coming on board, I was excited. Since there are two parallel tracks running in the show, it was even more exciting.
Still from Farzi |
Do you feel more liberated as an actor while performing in an OTT show than films in terms of script?
You have to delve deeper, there is more opportunity as an actor to bring more to it. I think when you do something short format, you can be more attacking in the way you approach the character. Sometimes that works very well. I don’t like attacking characters, I like to pull people into the screen and I think it should be immersive. So, this actually suits me because the immersive experience is what I enjoy as a viewer.
Elaborate further…
As an actor that comes naturally to me and I want people to get engaged and involved as opposed to shouting and telling them to give me attention it’s not my thing, so this allowed me to do. I love long format for that very reason and I probably consumed more in terms of hours on long format than I have in a film theatre in the last couple of years for various reasons.
