Sayantani Ghosh is among the few lucky TV actors of her age group to not be stuck only in the mother bracket. She is next playing a woman of her age in Star Plus’ much-awaited medical show, Sanjivani. “I can’t talk anything about the show yet. But yes, coming to your point of playing mother roles, the sad part is that there is no bracket for women of my age group of thirty-year-olds. The roles of mothers which were being played by women in the forties earlier are now being given to actors in my age zone. The lead roles are reserved for girls in their early twenties.”
“in a way, I have been lucky not to get typecast. Even in Naamkaran, I became a mother only after a year. Also, most of my characters have much more meat than normal TV mothers, e.g. Satyavati and Kunti in Mahabharat and Karn Sangini respectively,” says Sayantani, who has gained name and fame courtesy shows like Naagin, Ghar Ek Mandir, etc.
“Here I will admit that this fear of typecasting did wrap me when I first started years back (Kumkum, 2002), but not anymore. One other big change is that patience levels have dropped. Back then, even average shows would run for a year. But not anymore; if you don’t rate, out you go.”
Point out that maybe audiences did not warm up to the new interpretation of the Mahabharat in Karn Sangini, which was why this Sony show quickly shut shop, and she says, “While I agree that it was always a tough task given that people have set notions about their epics, but at least we tried to change the fiction format which has gone very mundane.”
When asked why everyone is making a beeline for the web, she replied, “It is because they offer differentiated roles as opposed to your staple TV diet. You might see me on the WWW landscape as well.”
But is it not true that most TV actors are still unsure about the bold web, which they fear might tick off their TV audiences?
“I am not very sure if both TV and web audiences are even the same. And again, not all web products have nudity and rank abuse. Here I can only speak for myself. I would be ready for risqué content if it justified by the script and not added only for titillation.”
“What others are doing or not doing, I can’t answer for them.”
Wish you all the best, Sayantani!