Pariah: Vikram Chatterjee says playing an action hero was exciting

Q. How was slipping into the action role cutting across your 'lover boy' image?

A. I have always played roles that have excited me. I never opted for a role to create an image or being image-conscious. My roles encompass romance, negative characters like I played in Shaheb Bibi Golaam or a different type of character in Shesh Pata. The process was the same for Pariah which is an action film. I found Pariah both challenging and exciting. Whether the character is challenging and exciting enough or not is most important for me.

Q. You had reached out to Jeet while preparing for the role. Was there any reference point to play the character?

A. There were multiple reference points. The style of Tathagata's direction includes various workshops which help actors to sketch a character. Pariah was no exception to it. We had different films including Rocky, Rambo, Batman, Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota to watch out for as reference points. We didn't follow a particular actor but had multiple references.

Vikram Chatterjee in Pariah | Photo courtesy: Screenshot grab from trailer video

Q. How do you avoid getting influenced when there are one or more reference points?

A. There was no particular reference which could have influenced me. Since it's my first action film, it was ensured by the makers that I was not confused about what the director wanted from me. It helps me a lot as an actor.

Q. Tathagata Mukherjee's films are very content-oriented. Pariah is a blend of action and serious content. How did you maintain the balance between the two while acting?

A. I would call Pariah an out and out mass entertainer. Now, there is no hard and fast rule to make a mass entertainer. Mass entertainer is anything that entertains a wider audience. Pariah is the same with a soul, core and a reason. Apart from this, I believe it's a complete mass entertainer.

Q. The film presumably has taken a toll on you both physically and mentally. How did you liberate yourself?

A. It is very natural for an actor to get emotionally drained by any character, more so in Pariah because its subject is very personal to many of us. In the course of making this film, we came to know how animals are being tortured. These are very depressing experiences to listen to as humans. It's depressing to even realise that humans commit such atrocities. I had almost started hating such people by the end of the shooting schedule. So it had an emotional impact on me. But I believe we can't generalise all people. I can't judge the mass by some handful of people.

Image by Avishek Mitra/IBNS

Q. From Tollywood to Bollywood, Pariah has received quite a lot of support!

A. For me, the wishes of Bollywood actor Bobby Deol and Tollywood actors are equally important. A lot of Bengali film personalities including Dev, Raj Chakraborty, Soham Chakraborty and others have supported the film. I am equally thankful to them. I hope the trailer had made them feel something so they went out to support it. I hope a huge number of people will feel this is a journey they want to celebrate after watching Pariah.

Q. Do you feel like stepping into the shoes of hardcore commercial films, which are missing in Bengal right now?

A. It has been missing for a long time. The definition of a mass entertaining film has changed a long time ago. But I also believe the language of films changes depending on the audience's taste. The new type of mass entertainers traded well. Now we all are trying to cater to a bigger audience once again. Above all, we have to consistently produce films for a wider audience because one or two hits here and there doesn't help an industry in the long run.

(Images by Avishek Mitra/IBNS)