Exclusive! Vikram Chatterjee: I think Bengali films should get equal opportunity to compete with Bollywood and South industry

Vikram Chatterjee and Raima Sen’s Roktokorobi was dropped on Zee5 on February 3. Directed by Sayantan Ghosal, the series is created by Sahana Dutta. The show, which also features Shantilal Mukherjee, Tulika Basu, Angana Roy, Laboni Sarkar, and others, is billed as a psychological thriller. Vikram plays a psychologist who encounters a setback in his career. In an exclusive chat with OTTplay, Vikram talks about his character, his experience of working with Raima Sen, and his love for Shah Rukh Khan. Read on…

Tell us about your character in Roktiokorobi.

My Character, Satyaki, is a psychologist. He has always been a good student, liked and loved by his professors. As a result, he has been confident in his career. He was under the impression that his professional life will be as seamlessly successful as his academic life. However, despite his counselling, his first patient commits suicide. That setback comes to him as trauma. To find peace with the trauma, his extended family members take him to their village home. There, several weird incidents and a number of deaths start taking place. He tries to find the root cause of the series of events. His sister-in-law – Ranja (Raima) – becomes closer to him. Satyaki digs up the ancient secrets of their family.

How was your experience of working with Raima Sen?

She is the coolest co-worker I have ever worked with. I am not calling her one of the coolest actresses but ‘the coolest’ person I worked with. She has worked with a number of the finest directors in a series of brilliant films. She comes from a very reputed family and yet when she enters the set she has no baggage. Usually, I take my work very seriously and hence become a very grumpy person on set. Raima made sure to prank me and break the seriousness. Initially, I was slightly irritated. If it was someone not as senior as her, I would have asked them to stop. But I could not tell her a work. Later I realised that her strategy was perfect. We had 31 days of a long shooting schedule. It was very exhausting given the intensity of the content, we all were very involved in the show. There I realised how Raima was right to lighten things up. I really enjoyed working with her.

When you started your OTT journey with Hoichoi’s Tansener Tanpura, Sahana Dutta was part of the platform’s team. Here, you got to work with her closely. How is she to work with?

First, it was a brilliant team to work with. I loved working with Sayantan and his team. Meanwhile, Sahanadi came on set every single day and sat through every bit of our shooting. She knew that it is an intense drama and hence her help would be needed.

And yes, when I got the offer from Tansener Tanpura, she was there in Hoichoi. Later, I heard, that she played a key role to make me Aalap in the show. I am grateful to her for showing immense trust in my skills. And again, in Roktokorobi, she trusted me with a layered character. I feel grateful.

Satyaki faces a setback in his career early. You have also experienced a major setback just at the beginning of your career…

Satyaki’s setback is different from the setback I went through. Satyaki has always been a winner and someone who always wins may find it difficult to see even a minute failure in life. My setback was different and I see that as part of life now. Every individual deals with a certain amount of setbacks. It's important to see how you deal with your failure.

On a lighter note, did you manage to watch Pathaan?

Oh of course. I watched it already. I am a die-hard Shah Rukh Khan fan and whatever little acting that I do today has happened due to him. It is because of him, I started acting. I had to watch him on screen after four years. I was amazed to see what this 57-year-old man has done in this film. Even today, he pushes me and motivates me to perform seriously.

At the same time, Pathan created a lot of angst among the Bengali filmmakers as the film ousted all the other Bengali films from the single-screen theatres…

It is like a vicious cycle. If you don’t let Bengali films do business, producers will not invest and we cannot make good Bengali films. There has to be a policy like Maharashtra, etc, where regional films get to run on prime time. Bengali films must get equal opportunity.-