From making audiences laugh as the quirky Jana in ‘Stree’ to haunting them as the silent and menacing Hathoda Tyagi in ‘Paatal Lok’, Abhishek Banerjee’s journey has been anything but ordinary. In an exclusive conversation with Mathrubhumi English, the actor opened up about these two breakthrough roles that defined his career in very different ways.

Abhishek recalled how the release of ‘Stree’ in 2018 marked the moment he truly felt he belonged in the film industry. “The minute ‘Stree’ became a success, I definitely realised that there is some role for me to play in the bigger scheme of things. It’s very rare that a new actor, a fresh actor, has been appreciated and loved so much by the audience and the critics. So, when that happened, I was quite sure that I was going to get some interesting parts,” he said.

However, things didn’t go as he thought they would. While the success of ‘Stree’ in 2018 brought him widespread recognition, it also led to him being typecast in comic roles.

“But unfortunately, after that, I got stereotyped. People were trying to cast me as a quirky man who would wear colourful clothes and colourful sunglasses, talk a certain way, and have a peculiar hairstyle. Honestly, it scared me. By 2020, which is two years after ‘Stree’s release, I was really scared, and I was like, ‘Why don’t they see ‘Mirzapur’ where I played a compounder, or why don’t they see ‘Ajji’ where I played Dhavale? ’”

It was only with his chilling portrayal of Hathoda Tyagi in ‘Paatal Lok’ that he was finally able to shatter that stereotype and prove his versatility as a performer. Talking about it, Abhishek said, “What happens in this industry is that if a particular character is successful, somebody has seen you in that character, they would want to use that particular skill of yours in their film. And that troubled me. Thank god I had ‘Pataal Lok’ which completely changed the way people thought about what I could do.

"'Pataal Lok’ is the next pillar in my career that really changed the way people looked at me. It was because of ‘Paatal Lok’ that I got ‘Stolen’, and I got a lot of other stuff that I got to do. Many of those were not very successful, like ‘Rashmi Rocket’ did not really hit the mark, but it at least gave me an opportunity to play something that I would have never played if I hadn’t done ‘Pataal Lok’. That way it really helped me,” said the 40-year-old actor.

Both ‘Stree’ and ‘Pataal Lok’ were huge successes in his career. But when asked to pick one between the two, Abhishek quipped: “I would pick ‘Stree’ because ‘Pataal Lok’ is something that I know I can do again and again, to be very honest. And I think I’ll get many opportunities to play something on those lines. But I’m not very sure if I’m going to play something similar on the lines of Jana in my career again. I don’t know if I’ll play a goofy guy again or whether I’ll get a script like that. Every time somebody offered me a goofy character, I’ve been like, ‘Hey, that’s already done. And I have nothing more to offer. I can’t really give you nine rasas of a goofy man.’ So my goofy man is that goofy man whom you saw (in ‘Stree’). It will be very difficult for me to break that. Jana, I think, is also the most popular character in India, for me. It has popularity not only in metropolitan cities but also in smaller cities and villages. So, between ‘Pataal Lok’ and ‘Stree’, it is definitely Jana that I will pick.”

Meanwhile, Abhishek, who was recently seen in ‘Stolen’, his 2023 film that got premiered on June 4, is presently filming for his next - ‘Baaghi Bechare’. Helmed by director Sumit Rajpurohit, the film also features Pratik Gandhi and Faisal Khan. Its first schedule was wrapped recently in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.