EXCLUSIVE! Stree 2 actor & casting director Abhishek Banerjee on the Hema Committee report: ‘It’s a little dark in some…’ | Not Just Bollywood

Actor Abhishek Banerjee honestly believes that casting couch and the whole sham about it always existed. But in his years as a casting director, he only tried to make it a professional space for everybody. So that the meetings don’t happen in your coffee shops. His advice is don’t get too desperate and agree to meet up with the directors wherever and whenever.

Talking about his initial years of struggle of becoming an actor, Abhishek Banerjee says that there was a point when he lost all hope. But he never gave up.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

Your journey has been really interesting in the entertainment industry. What do you have to say about your journey?

 My journey started in school itself when I decided that I wanted to be an actor because that was something that I enjoyed more than studies. It then looked like a crime to dream so big. But again I wanted to be an actor for sure, but had no clue how. My father was astonished, he felt it was impossible for me to be an actor or even think of me choosing a career as an actor. He even said why do you even want to go to Bombay? But I was determined to be an actor.

I went to Kirori Mal College in Delhi and the kind of creative culture they had, the kind of training that my college gave me, I think that was enough for me to understand acting in different mediums. Full credit goes to my teacher KL Arora who taught us English literature and was advisor in my college theatre group.

For me it was more like a journey of hard work. I always wanted to come to Bombay and work hard, but didn’t know where to start. I always knew that I had the creativity to understand stories. So, I can do anything with regards to filmmaking. And that’s how I chose to be a casting director which helped me in paying my bills and being close to the people in the industry. Casting became like my film school, I was understanding about camera, acting and also understanding how a director perceives their character. I started networking through casting and it also helped me in exploring my own self and developing some good friendships too with filmmakers like Amal Kaushik. If I was never a casting director, then I would have never met Amal Kaushik and would have not got Stree . And I never expected it to be such a great franchise. I always thought it to be a small horror comedy.

When you started off as a casting director, what was it like?

I felt that these guys don’t even know how to talk to actors. I honestly felt that there was a lack of respect towards actors who want to give auditions in those audition rooms. I always tried to change certain things around me wherever I could.

Does casting happen with just spotting a person on the road, the way Satyajit Ray spotted Sharmila Tagore on her way back to school?

I don’t think so. With changing times, do you think people are so observant these days. And nobody is going out of the way to do any research. But when came in casting, there was a research involved like if you are going to Delhi, let’s look for Delhi theatre actors who is not a part of Bollywood films. And that’s how ‘No One Killed Jessica’ happened.

I felt if I am not able to make a mark for myself as an actor, then I was being an enabler. I was helping actors. It’s not that I have never lost hope, there were times when I lost hope also to be an actor. It was already seven to eight years into casting and I was told that I was a terrible actor. I did badly at auditions. I thought familiarity will give me work and I felt that is the way Bollywood works, but that didn’t happen.

That was actually a turning point in my life. Either I would have been a bitter human being that these directors don’t know anything about acting. Or the realisation that there was something terribly wrong with my performance. And thank god I thought the latter. I started working on myself and started training harder on my mind and not with my craft, because I already had the training of craft. So, probably there was the problem of application. I understand that stage acting is different from acting on the big screen.

I got two of my biggest roles Hathoda Tyagi and Jana during my casting period. Trust is the biggest factor as an actor. It is very important whether the filmmaker trusts you as an actor.

For me I am never looking at a star while casting, I am always looking at a ‘potential star’. For me the first thing I am looking at as a casting director is whether you can act or not. No matter how good looking you are, if you are flat on screen you will not be able to impress the audiences. First you will have to play the character well and that’s how we remember Vijay, Raj … all these names. That’s how an actor becomes a star. Later comes the swag and the smile and the dimples. You need time to build up the ‘fandom’.

 But to put under certain criteria and then choose an actor for a certain number of films, can be a failure because sometimes the youngsters might like your six-packs. But the next moment there can be a shift and will not be about six-packs anymore.

What about movies like Laapataa Ladies which didn’t have a big star cast?

Well, Laapataa Ladies is an Indi film made by a super star producer. Had Laapataa Ladies didn’t have him (Aamir Khan) as a producer, it would have been very difficult for the film to do well.

Not disagreeing that this is the year of the newcomers because we have a 12th Fail, Madgaon Express , Shrikant and a blockbuster like Stree2 and if you see the common link is they faces whom you would probably not have believed would give us successful films or money making films. I feel there is definitely a change, but not an overall change. It’s happening, but it needs to become a practice for me to believe it. It’s still happening as if kad ka dekha kiya (shall we try and see), so there are still doubts about it.

On the Hema Committee report , you being a casting director, I would like to know why is Bollywood so quiet about it? And is it a practice in Bollywood too because I strongly believe it is if we go back to 2018 and the big names that came out?

 Kisko kiya bola (What to say) we all know what is happening. But whatever I read in the Hema committee report there is a little darkness. You need time to process such information. Rather than a tabloid news story, it is becoming like a whole crime drama.

Honestly, the casting couch and the whole sham about it always existed. But in my whatever years as a casting director, I only tried to make it a professional space for everybody. So that the meetings don’t happen in your coffee shops. My advice is don’t get too desperate and agree to meet up with the directors wherever and whenever. I am trying to tell all actors that you don’t need to meet somebody outside of work space. You need to meet up in offices and not coffee shops. And in Bombay it is very common that new directors go and meet actors in coffee shops. If we stop doing that half the problems will be solved. The meeting culture has to change for it to become a better space for everybody.