Pankaj Tripathi wants to ‘break out of his comfort zone’, explains what star fees means to him

Ahead of Criminal Justice Adhura Sach, actor Pankaj Tripathi talks about what acting means to him, and how he wants to break out of his comfort zone and experiment.

Trust Pankaj Tripathi to give his best when he is doing a web-series. After receiving cold reviews for his last film — Sherdil: The Pilibhit Saga — the actor is preparing for the release of the third season of his much loved web-show Criminal Justice Adhura Sach, where he plays a sharp and humane lawyer Madhav Mishra.

In this interview with indianexpress.com, the actor says it was a good move on his part to juggle mainstream Hindi feature films with OTT projects.

I feel fortunate that OTT boomed in my time. Here, it doesn’t matter how many screens one gets or the number of shows, only content matters. If it is good content, anyone can watch it from anywhere in the world. If story is not good, people won’t watch it anyway, but if performance mein dum hoga then people will watch your work and give you love.

For talent to reach people, one needs reach that OTT provides. Everything that I did on OTT, across all platforms, has received a lot of love. Recently my short film Laali released, and it did really well. I didn’t know a short film could trend too on OTT and become number one. Laali wasn’t promoted, and yet it trended and audiences loved it, that’s the beauty of OTT. I believe, just like Laali, Criminal Justice, when it releases, will get love too.

The best part about OTT is that we are sure that our work will reach a wide audience around the world. If someone wants to watch my work in Bihar, they have means to do so. In comparison, some of my small films have not released properly, not even in my home state. If a young boy from my district wants to watch the film, it is very difficult to go 200 kms to Patna. Even if it is not just one person, but hundreds of thousands, how and why will they travel all the way? OTT mein woh samasya nahi hai. People can watch it from their comfortable space, whenever they want to, and then decide if they like it or not, and then they can either love it trash it. To make any content someone’s choice, it is important that it reaches people.

When I travel abroad, people know me and come to meet me. I get shocked at times to know that people know me in so many different countries. Recently I was in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and people were actually discussing my shows with me. I was pleasantly surprised to know that our stories have reached them, so far away from where it is made. I have a huge fan following in Bangladesh and Indonesia. Without OTT, I wouldn’t have ever dreamt of this day.

It is very heartening to know that people have loved this character so much. Someone very senior in the industry had told me once that Madhav Mishra’s character is very well crafted and fleshed out, and that I have laced it with minute details. He is the kind of guy who lives somewhere around you, someone you know from somewhere. So, this is the relatability that connects people.

I didn’t plan it, it was a very organic move for me to do both. But web series entered my life at a good time. When Mirzapur, Sacred Games and Criminal Justice were offered to me, I had only seen if the story is good or not. I didn’t know these shows will turn out to be so popular, neither did I ever think that these platforms will give me this kind of popularity and take my work to so many countries, households, people. I am still striving to be part of good stories. Oh My God and Fukrey 3 are big films and will first release in cinema halls but will eventually come on OTT and satellite too. So, I am in a good space because I am a part of both.

When someone hires us, they hire us physically, emotionally and mentally. Of course, while selecting scripts we see if we’ll enjoy working on it or not. Primary criteria for acting is not money, it is happiness. But happiness alone will neither help me run my household, nor will let me do things I want and need to do in life. I can’t go to a store and tell the seller that give me goods, I’ll give you happiness in return (chuckles). There is yet another layer to the money that we earn, there is a social responsibility, one part of the earnings goes into tax. The government has contributed to our education, I trained at the National School of Drama (NSD). So, I pay my taxes as a responsibility to my profession and my country, so, like me, another young man from a very small village can also dream of becoming an actor, get training from another government aided institutions. That’s how I look at it.

News Source:- The Indian EXPRESS