Rajeev Siddhartha who won critical acclaim as Romil in ALTBalaji’s Romil and Jugal on the web space has done splendid job yet again in his recent web-series on Viu India, Kaushiki.
In Kaushiki, the thriller wherein various dark secrets of a group of friends get opened up, Rajeev plays the most smart, intelligent and well-read character of Mrityunjay. From being the well-mannered MBA boy, his character takes a drastic turn when the hidden skeletons of his life drop out of the cupboard.
Says Rajeev, “Very few web-series get made in the thriller zone and the script was so well-written that I had to accept this offer. Also, when I read about my character graph, that from being such a sweet, polite boy, he ends up having such a dark side to it, I was drawn towards the project. I am grateful that I got the chance to play Mrityunjay. And as the episodes panned out, the secrets of every character got darker and darker and this kept the viewers intrigued to the series. Personally, I loved my character a lot, and I could invest a lot of myself into this character.”
The Season Finale of Kaushiki will stream this week and there are a lot of viewers looking forward to watching the climax. On this, Rajeev avers, “Yes, just like how you all are waiting, I am also waiting for the finale to stream. We had great fun shooting for it. But seeing it on screen will be a great experience.”
Ask him about the ending note of Kaushiki and he does not want to give it away, saying, “You will have to see it. I do not want to state anything in the open. The series has had amazing twists and turns, and the season finale will only take it to a new high.”
On the challenges that Rajeev faced, he says, “When you play a character that is dark, you tend to carry it home. We had an intense shoot from start to stop; so the momentum was high. At times I used to see myself in a dark mood even while not shooting. But I don’t mind this at all, as long as it serves the story. It is fine to take a hit in personal life and this was a big challenge for me. Otherwise, the cast and crew involved were high on energy. Our Director Suparn Verma was free to take in our inputs; he made all of us very comfortable.”
Rajeev who is a very active threate personality feels that the stage has actually helped him to work on his scenes better.
The tall and handsome lad is simply in awe with his own character. “I was intrigued by my character the most. He was so sweet and soft on the surface, and went on to be so malicious. It was such a good character graph that one can get. Mrityunjay truly only loved himself, and he would not get anything get in between his success. There is a lot going on inside him, but he is a restrained guy with respect to the emotions shown on the face. This was also a challenge for me. Naturally, I am a very expressive person, and this made the character very interesting. I was going against my type, I can say.”
Rajeev is currently working on his plays, Gauhar and Wedding Album. “We are performing for Gauhar in Ahmedabad this weekend and in Kolkata next week. So theatre has always kept me busy.”
On his future plans, Rajeev says, “I am in talks for films. My plan is to stick with web-series and films. For actors, thanks to the digital platform, there is so much of interesting work available.”
Way to go, Rajeev!! Job well done in Kaushiki!!