Sohan Thakur the renowned Casting Director has made good inroads in the TV, web, and film circuits.
Sohan who has been around for many years as Casting Director for television shows is busy working on some top-line web and film content.
However, he seems to be irked at the way the medium of the web categorizes and typecasts actors from the television industry.
Says Sohan, “I am tired of listening to the feedback from the web medium that they do not need actors from TV in their projects. I wonder why this bias!! An actor is an actor regardless of the medium he/she has worked in. The fact remains that actors who can be really spontaneous are the ones with the background of TV. As the person handling Casting, I am against this new trend that has developed. I have tried my level best to explain this theory to people and platforms I have worked with.”
“The trend is that film actors and even untrained actors are preferred over TV actors. Barring actors like Mouni Roy, Karan Wahi, Sharad Kelkar, and a few more, not many from TV have got the scope and opportunity to make it big on web and films. We have so many versatile actors with varied looks and appearances on the TV circuit. Even when they come close to bagging roles, they are rejected for the very fact that they are from TV.”
“An actor from the web gets his script for auditions a week before. But a TV guy does not even know what he has to audition for, on the day of the audition. Even with such drawbacks, the TV actors do so very well in auditions. Since there is less scope, actors on TV prefer to pick up roles of the ‘bhai, bhabhi, maa, etc even when they are very young in age. This is an insult to such actors.”
“Hats off to actors who prove their versatility at such a young age by picking up varied roles on TV. I am not against new actors. But side-lining the actors of TV by typecasting them is not right. There are so many films and shows being made, but most of them turn out to be unsuccessful as they do not have the best of actors for the said roles. If you observe, the shows which have had the best of the cast have always worked, and the ones with non-actors have failed.”
“There is a passion with which a TV actor approaches a certain work. They have to be valued for the kind of dedication they put in. This trend of not taking TV actors for the best of web concepts needs to get stopped.”