Paatal Lok actor Ishwak Singh: Success of OTT doesn’t mean theatres will be obsolete

Ishwak Singh aka Imran Ansari from Paatal Lok has been garnering a lot of praise for his latest OTT outing. He talks about his theatre days in Delhi, and how he prepped for playing a cop on-screen.

Ishwak Singh is on cloud nine. And rightly so since there haven’t been many opportunities for most budding actors during the coronavirus pandemic. But Singh sort of got his Bollywood breakthrough moment with his recent web series Paatal Lok. Produced by actor Anushka Sharma, the nine-episode series has received rave reviews for his performance as Imran Ansari — a soft spoken Kashmiri Muslim police officer — a character that is nuanced and has given the actor the well-deserved adulation from both within the industry and the public.

Actor Ishwak Singh has been receiving accolades for his recent performance in a web series on OTT. (Photo: Instagram/ishwaksingh)

Singh, a Delhi boy, who has been part of Bollywood films such as Aligarh (2015), Tamasha (2015) and Veere Di Wedding (2018), says his recent OTT outing has been a thrilling experience. Not many know that his earlier associated with Asmita Theatre Group in the Capital gave him his first cameo as a doctor in Raanjhanaa (2013).

A background in theatre has certainly helped him in approaching characters with sensitivity. “Theatre is certainly the traditional way of approaching the craft. Films are just a modern medium of communicating the stories. Films and plays are different in the ways they are made. We often shoot as per the location and the scenes are broken. But theatre helped me tie the knots in a medium like cinema where the narrative is often fragmented,” says the 30-year-old.

His character, in the web series, is almost an antithesis to the image of the pot-bellied corrupt police officers that one is used to seeing on-screen. “Ansari believes in the system. He believes in the regime; he wants to be a super cop that straddles both the worlds; he wants to pursue IPS so that he can serve while he also wants to solve high profile cases and do the right thing. The character is endearing and inspiring all at once,” Singh says.

But, to get into the skin of his character on OTT, Singh had to take to reading books to be able to enhance his character portrayal. “I’m from Delhi, so I could relate to the environment that is present in the series. I hung out at the outer district police stations and understood the rigorous pressure that police personnel are under. I also tried to witness different processes such as interrogations, investigations so as to learn more about the environment of a local police station.”

“The script was very special and it just allowed me to bring forth the best of my abilities. When the two characters are interacting with compassion, kindness, and just simply looking out for each other, all these places are where my personal self came through.”

He says that the onscreen camaraderie between his character Ansari and Jaideep Ahlawat’s Hathi Ram Choudhary is formed on the bedrock of a lot of mentor-rookie relationships that he has lived through and witnessed in life. “The script was very special and it just allowed me to bring forth the best of my abilities. When the two characters are interacting with compassion, kindness, and just simply looking out for each other, all these places are where my personal self came through. I could use my experiences to enrich the moments on screen.”

As the debate of OTT vs theatre and theatres continues to gather steam, Singh says that one medium’s success does not negate the importance of the other. “Just because a series does well, it does not mean theatres will become obsolete. The entire experience of watching a movie in a theatre is very personal. It is the most common and interactive form of recreation. We have memories of first dates or family outings to the theatre, and those cannot be substituted by watching movies on a laptop or your phone,” opines Singh, and elucidates that more mediums mean more content for people, and “these translate to more opportunities for filmmakers to experiment with the narrative and the format.”

While he is still reeling under the influence of mass adulation that has come his way, Singh has been quarantining with his family in Delhi. “I was originally quite bothered by the sudden lockdown. I was habitual of going out; reading scripts in cafes, playing cricket. But of late I have taken to honing other skills which has given a sense of stability to my routine. I’m learning a few musical instruments, and also dabbling in martial arts as well as contemporary dance. But as of now, I’m just very happy and busy with the entire experience of Paatal Lok.”

Author tweets @Mallika_bhagat

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