Sharad Kelkar: People will get bored of watching content on phone, and obviously head to cinemas

Stating that theatres are not going anywhere, actor Sharad Kelkar calls it an “irreplaceable experience”.

Digital platforms have certainly become an important medium of entertainment in the past one year, but Sharad Kelkar feels that theatres would never lose out on their popularity even amid the pandemic. The actor adds that there is no basis to the whole OTT vs theatre debate.

Actor Sharad Kelkar was last seen in Laxmii (2020).

“I want to make a very bold statement that theatres are not going anywhere. It is an irreplaceable experience. First of all, you can’t watch a film and enjoy it on your phones or TV or laptops as you can in cinemas. That’s the reason why films always used to come first in cinemas and then on TV,” he says.

The actor has been a part of films as well as OTT projects such as web series Rangbaaz Phir Se, Special OPS, The Family Man, Black Widows and web released films including Laxmii and Darbaan (both 2020).

While the 44-year-old enjoys being a part of OTT medium, he notes, “We all enjoy the theatres experience. And cinemas will remain because people will get bored of watching content on their small phones and obviously they would want to go to theatres. They would want to get the real big screen experience.”

Having said that, Kelkar feels that it is going to be a mix of both for actors as well as for the audiences, hence there is no question of one outshining the other.

“Now people have already started going to cinemas. Hopefully, when all the big films will release, ‘83 and Sooryavanshi, you will see the number of audience going to cinemas also increase. But there is a parallel world called the OTT that is of course going to stay here. There is a different kind of content that we get on OTTs which we can’t get in films because there are certain limitations. So both will survive together and I can see a great future in entertainment industry,” he concludes.