Exclusive! Parambrata Chatterjee on the whodunnit genre: As an actor, you have to unlearn the ultimate reveal completely

Parambrata Chatterjee is not new to the world of OTT, but with Aranyak, the actor received a lot more appreciation. The actor-filmmaker plays the role of Angad Malik, a cop in the latest Netflix series featuring Raveena Tandon in the lead. Both the actors walk shoulder-to-shoulder in the series and make for a deadly duo.

As the series has become a huge success, Chatterjee spoke at length to OTTplay about how he landed the role in Aranyak.

"I auditioned for it. I was sent the little bits of it and I didn't have much of a clue about what it was all about. I was sent the whole thing holistically. But whatever little I read as a part of the script that was sent to me, it was very exciting and interesting. I thought I had just put in a good test, and after that, it was confirmed that I was doing it. Then, once I read the whole script and then I got to know that Raveena Tandon was playing the role of Kasturi, all the boxes were ticked,” he said.

Aranyak is of the whodunnit genre, so Chatterjee revealed that he had to unlearn the whole suspense while shooting for it. The actor shared, "I think it's a part of the deal of being an actor that, obviously, as two of the prime actors in the show, you are privy to certain things that will be revealed only at the end. But it is your job as an actor to make sure that, despite knowing what the ultimate reveal is, people shouldn't know that you know. That's a thing. But sometimes you also have to tell yourself that you have to unlearn it completely. That's also a fun part of being an actor, especially in a series like Aranyak, which is essentially a thriller. It is also very important for the makers, and that's where I think the success of the makers of Aranyak lies."

He added, "The fact is that there are a lot of thrillers being made right now, across all the platforms and in all languages. Despite that, the kind of traction that Aranyak is fetching is something that makes it stand out."

Before stepping into a character, a lot of actors pen an autobiography before kickstarting the shoot. On being quizzed about his process, Chatterjee revealed, "When you are narrating a character, the writer writes a character, and when an actor is given that character, there is only a certain amount of that character's trajectory that we see as a part of the whole thing. There must be other parts, there must be other stories to tell from that character's life as well, which we don't get to see because it is not in the script. So trying to imagine those traits, those incidents in that character's life that we haven't seen in the script, I think that helps in giving you a holistic picture of the character you're playing in your head in your mind. You can carry bits and pieces of that into the scenes as and when required. That is a method. That's a process that I follow as well."

About how he approached his role in Aranyak, the Kahaani actor shared, "I see every project has its way of evolving. A lot of people asked me about the workshop for the series, so I am telling them that we didn't do a workshop, unlike a lot of other projects that we have workshopped extensively and very seriously for. For Aranyak, what we did was also going to the lockdown, so we had to operate from our homes. So Raveena, myself, the director Vinay, and Rohan Sippy, mostly four of us actually, would do endless readings on Zoom. I think we started shooting in October, we started the readings separately in June, and finally, I would say, from August onwards, we did a lot of group reading. Every time you read the whole thing, there are finer and newer dimensions that come out and evolve. Also, it is easier to push yourself and become that character. With a greater number of readings, you can do that easily."

Chatterjee is known to juggle between projects, and he is one of the busiest actors right now. So how does he switch off from one character? To which the actor replied, "I think watching a lot of other stuff and kind of getting immersed in some reading and watching something from a very different genre than what we are doing between projects helps." Also, just going and meeting people who are not from the film industry, who are not connected to the trade or to our profession, really helps switch off that persona and also remain grounded. I think both of these come in really handy. It's nice to come into contact with people who are not from our industry because for a show or a film, we spend time with people from our line of work for days and months."

Chatterjee is likely to reprise his role as Angad Malik in the second season of Aranyak. Although the actor is yet to confirm it.