It’s natural for an actor to feel apprehensive about alienating their audience when breaking away from their screen image. But Jitendra Kumar had no such worries when he said yes to Bhagwat Chapter One: Raakshas. “Of course, there are things that connect with the audience. But no matter how strong an actor’s image is, the audience wants to be surprised,” starts Kumar, who has built a fan base with his dependable characters in TVF’s Panchayat and Kota Factory.
The Zee5 film felt like a necessary step. To him, it’s thrilling that even though he is best known as Jeetu bhaiyya of Kota Factory, the makers envisioned him in a dark role. “Harman [Baweja, producer] and the team’s excitement about having me in this complex, grey part excited me a lot. But it also raised expectations,” he smiles. In fact, he believes that most filmmakers have never typecast him. “Those who are interested in collaborating with me, bring me different characters. I’ve never had a maker bring something like Panchayat. I’ve been offered a different world every time.”
A still from ‘Bhagwat’
There was another reason to star in Bhagwat — his co-star Arshad Warsi. Kumar says he has been Warsi’s fan since he watched his cop drama Sehar (2005). “He brings human emotions [to any part]. If you observe Circuit closely, Arshad sir humanised the comedy; it didn’t feel like a written stand-up comedy set,” he explains.
Next, Kumar will be seen in the theatrical venture, Mirzapur The Film. While he plans to be medium-agnostic, many actors, who have risen to fame with their OTT work, have complained about the industry’s resistance to bet on them for big-screen stories. The actor has a different opinion. “Today, big-screen actors are coming to OTT because they want to try long-form storytelling. [Conversely], everyone who works in the OTT space is excited to be on the big screen. Right now, everyone is excited to do good work. If everyone does everything, the theatrical-OTT [divide] will reduce. If some actors refuse [work], saying, ‘I don’t want to do a film in a different medium’, the bracketing will start because then producers will know that certain actors think this way. So, the bracketing depends on actors rather than producers.”