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EXCLUSIVE: Aamir Ali on Naxalbari, breaking the monotony and typecast, peace his daughter brought in life
In an exclusive chat, Aamir Ali opened up on shooting for Naxalbari, the difficulty he faced to break the typecast because he did Television, and the 'peace' his daughter to his life.
Aamir Ali has always been a celebrated name on Television. Be it his shows on TV or the reality shows he participated in, the actor has always managed to impress us. This time around, Aamir went a step ahead and donned a never-seen-before avatar of his for his debut digital show Naxalbari. In the show, Aamir plays a slightly grey character who is complex to the T. In an exclusive chat, Aamir opened up on shooting for the show, the difficulty he faced to break the typecast because he did Television, and the 'peace' his daughter to his life. Over to him.
How different was the process of shooting for the web show, given that Television sometimes can get monotonous...?
When you do TV for a long time, at one point in time, you become very monotonous because you know your craft and you know what the scene demands. But there is a huge difference between a scene being good and being very good. I think we are usually happy with the scene being good. But for it to be the best I had to unlearn a lot of things. When you do a show like this, you have the time and space to experiment and can put extra effort. I even did a workshop for the first time.
There are different things in life, which have been very special to me. But I will never forget Naxalbari because of the times I have shot it in. I have gone through a different phase in life during COVID times, and I remember going to Goa for the shoot and it was all empty. I was actually going to shoot another show as well during March but it got shelved because of COVID and then I bagged this role. Hence, I will never forget the first day of shoot for Naxal right after the lockdown was partially lifted. I was so paranoid but then slowly we eased in. I hope that for the efforts that we have put, the show struck a chord with the audience.
Do you feel with the digital expansion over the last few years, actors are being recognised as actors and not differentiated basis platform?
Unfortunately, TV actors are not taken seriously by others. It still happens. When I was getting offers for digital shows, I was getting monotonous offers which were like an extended TV show. I had to wait and take a long break to get a different offer. I had to change my look a bit for every meeting so that they could see me in a new light. Unfortunately, fortunately, we make names for ourselves on TV and it gives us everything, but to be able to prove ourselves as actors, it takes a lot more. With digital, things are now changing. This kind of role I wouldn’t have ever got on TV because the definition of hero on TV is different.
Do you find it unfortunate sometimes that on TV one cannot get radical enough?
It is the way it is, there are shows which are bold as well which is not meant for the TV audience, so people who have an interest in those shows can watch them. Similarly, TV is usually meant to be watched with the family audience so the content is made accordingly. I hope there is no censorship on the web. No one forcing you to watch anything you don’t want to watch on the web. You have TV content for that. I still remember that we would refrain ourselves from doing so many things during FIR episodes only to cater to our audience but now with the web, we definitely have more scope and let the audience decide what they want. You cannot label anything sleazy or bad because there is an audience for everything.
Your daughter recently turned 1. How has having her changed your life?
She has got peace in my life. I couldn’t spend a lot of time with her during the lockdown because I did not want to take a chance and hence I wasn’t with her. I came back for her birthday and tried to spend as much time I could with her.
