EXCLUSIVE! Jimmy Sheirgill on his audio series Siyaah, 23 years of Mohabbatein & working with Amitabh Bachchan & SRK

Jimmy Sheirgill has completed 27 years in cinema. He began with Gulzar’s Maachis and has dabbled with multiple remarkable films like Munna Bhai MBBS, Haasil, Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster, and has been hailed as the Superstar of Punjabi cinema. He now enters into a new medium that is audio. For the Audible Project, he has done a title called Siyaah.

In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, the actor spoke about dabbling with the new medium and also recollects his memories of working in Aditya Chopra’s Mohabbatein that recently turned 23.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

How was your prep for Siyaah since this is an audio project?

Yes, this is my first audio project and I had no clue about it so when I was offered this show by Audible, my thing was to try and see what it is. I had a meeting with the director and he briefed me about it. Finally, the prep involved quite a few readings and we read through the script. The script and the characters were written with a lot of detail, we went from one scene to the other. The recording part of it was fun, and it’s very different from how we act in films and series. There were so many cameras while we were dubbing for it but it was fun, but this is a performance that comes out with your voice.

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What is the importance of voice modulation in the field of acting?

It’s very important since certain characters are restrained whereas certain characters are very powerful. Some dialogues that are given to you need to be projected in a certain way. Here, everything has to be done with your voice.

How can you engage an audience by making them just listen?

It depends what you’re talking about. If you talk about Siyaah, the audio series, even when I finished dubbing, I told them to make this into a series in a video format. Whoever directs it, the visuals, the way it is written, we have made it into an audio series, but the way the visuals have been described, it needs to be made into a video format.

With the advent of OTT, do you feel actors are getting much meatier parts than before?

When we talk about web series, there are 8-10 episodes, in films, we have only 2-2.5 hours. Most of the films revolve around the lead actors, but in OTT, there are other characters that are so well etched out and layered. You have the scope of each character performing to the best of his abilities and he comes out shining. With OTT, there’s so much work out there and people who were sitting at home are now getting work. During the pandemic, we all got hooked on this medium.

Your film Mohabbatein recently turned 23. What are your memories of working with Aditya Chopra, Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, and playing your character?

Lovely memories. They are absolutely fresh. It seems all this happened just last year, there are fond memories of every single sequence. There were 100 days of shooting, 4-6 months of training before we went ahead for the shoot and then the release and the craze that happened after that. I’m so happy and glad to see the maximum number of posts being about _Mohabbatein_.