Want to break the trend, do something different, challenge myself: Shahid Kapoor on his OTT debut

Mumbai: Bollywood star Shahid Kapoor, who is set to make his digital debut with a series by “The Family Man” creators Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK, says he wanted to challenge himself as an actor with his foray in streaming.

Dubbed as a quirky crime drama series, the show is created and written by Nidimoru and DK for Prime Video. It is co-written by Sita R Menon, Suman Kumar and Hussain Dalal.

”The choice to go on to the OTT platform was to break the trend, was to do something different and challenge myself. I have been doing this for almost 20 years, I need to feel challenged and excited,” the actor told PTI.

”If I am not doing something new, I will get bored of it and then the audience will get bored too. I always feel the need to bring out little change, so that it is fresh. So, this (show) was an opportunity to do that,” he added.

The 41-year-old actor said an artiste one must strive to deliver a refreshing tale on OTT platforms as viewers are already exposed to varied content.

”Whenever you are trying something different, you are always nervous. People might like you in that space or might not like you in another. So, you should always be humble and grounded.

”People have a lot of choices today, watch different types of content and you must always strive to give something that is refreshing,” he added.

Best known for his performance in ”Jab We Met”, ”Udta Punjab”, ”Haider” and ”Padmavaat”, the Delhi-born actor said he thoroughly enjoyed working on the web show.

”It is a long form format, I was excited to see how I can build a character over eight to nine episodes in the first season. We will see what happens after that. But that is very different from playing a character which is two hour and pretty much in one stretch. All those things are exciting. I actually enjoyed myself a lot.” The actor had been looking for an opportunity to team up with Nidimoru and DK, who have also directed films such as ”Go Goa Gone”, ”Shor In The City” and ”99”.

”The Amazon show with Raj and DK is very interesting and exciting. They (directors) have worked with Manoj Bajpayee in their last project and I wanted to collaborate with them but was thought their expectations will be very high (from me) given the fact that they have worked with him (Bajpayee) before,” he said.

”It is a different show with a different world completely and that is most exciting. They are very good at what they do. It is very new for me also.” Without divulging details, the ”Kabir Singh” star said he will be playing someone from the streets of Mumbai.

”I completely understand (the character). That is what I was when I was 16-17 year-old, travelling in trains, doing this, that. The street Mumbai kid, with a lot of ambition and dreams and middle class, lower middle class background. There is a crime angle that happens,” Kapoor said.

The series also features National Award winner Vijay Sethupathi, Raashi Khanna and Regina Cassandra.

Speaking of working with Tamil star Sethupathi, Kapoor said, ”We don’t have many scenes on the show. We just meet once in the whole show (but) it is a cool scene.’