Click it and Unblock the Notifications
Exclusive! Gulshan Devaiah Credits Irrfan Khan For Success Of His Role In Duranga 2, Calls It Challenging
Gulshan Devaiah Duranga 2 Interview: Gulshan Devaiah has been in the industry for over a decade now and has proven his versatility by working in some unconventional roles. He is currently basking in the success of his latest thriller web series, Duranga second season.
The show, which is currently streaming on Zee5, will see Gulshan back as Abhishek Banne/Samit Patel, has been garnering rave reviews from the audience and critics alike. While speaking to Filmibeat in a candid conversation, the actor opened up about the show, his role, and working on a show like Duranga.
Here are excerpts from the interview.
How does all the appreciation for Duranga 2 feel?
I attended a small event yesterday at MAMI, where a lot of people came and met me, and they had such appreciation for season two. It feels nice. We were quite confident because season one was really well appreciated, both for performances as well as for the story. So they're just taking this forward. From Duranga season one onwards, it's just like there's so many messages that come into my DM that it's really a little impossible for me to keep track of all of them. And Dhrashti also has a huge fan base, and a lot of them are showering us with the usual love that they gave us in season one. So it's a good feeling, but we were quite confident that people would like it because of how well season one did.
The character of Abhishek Banne is someone who has been through trauma; therefore, he fails to show that emotion on his face. How did you crack it? Was it challenging?
It is challenging, and it needed some work to figure out. And a lot of this work happened last year, before we started filming season one. When it comes to filmmaking, we have the advantage of close-ups. So, you know, the audience can sort of get a peek into you through your eyes. Even if the face or body is not showing any expression, the eyes do. So I think I tried to sort of do a lot of things, be it a gaze, holding a gaze, or taking away a gaze, or blinking, or not blinking and things like that, or having slight moisture in the eye. All of these things convey certain feelings, and then the audience, subconsciously, picks up on this.
Because, as human beings, whenever we meet people, we keep reading their faces. We don't really stare at just one particular thing. The eyes wander and look at the face. And this is a very common human thing. That's how human beings are able to detect friends from foes. It's constantly reading messages as to what the other person is giving out. So, as an actor, I was holding back on expressing too much on the face. But then I let my eyes sort of not be very static and then be expressive. It's a little difficult to do it. It just takes a little bit of practice, and then it just becomes easy after a point.
There are a lot of actors who have very expressive eyes, like Irrfan used to have extremely expressive eyes, which is why, even with such subtlety, he used to sort of convey a lot of emotions. So I think I was influenced by such things. So then I would practice doing so. I think that's the one technique I kind of used to my advantage here to have expressive eyes.
You're playing a dark character in Duranga, did you face any disturbing things during the shoot?
I think the reality that's there in the script is Abhishek Banne's reality and not mine. I use it to sort of form a picture of who this person is in my imagination and in my mind. And of course, the writers and directors guide me and whoever I'm working with. My co-actors also sort of provide me with some impulses. But I'm very aware that this is not Gulshan Devaya's reality. So it doesn't really affect me. Yeah, sometimes when you have to do something, we get tired, like when you do a lot of emotional scenes, and this season was particularly emotional for my character and Dhrashti's character.
And then Abhishek also starts to feel things that he's never felt before, and he doesn't know how to handle it. So when you're doing such emotionally charged and demanding scenes, it does make you really tired and sometimes even dehydrated because, after a point, you have no nutrients run out. Apart from that, which is a very normal thing that happens to everybody, I don't think I can remember that any of the trauma that Abhishek Banne had gone through was affecting me per se.
More than Drashti Dhami, your chemistry with Amit Sadh in this second season came out really well. Tell us all that went behind it.
Unka character kafi intense hai aur unka approach bhi. Apne kam aur passion ko lekar ek intensity lekar aate hai on sets. Ache actor hai toh aapko bas mehsos karna hota hai ki samne wala kya akr rhaa hai, and then you respond accordingly. Toh bahut easy bhi ho jata hai because humare sath koi preproduction nahi tha unhone. Maine set pe hi discover kiya ki inka role yese hone wala hai. So there is a surprise element in there, as Abhishek Banne. I am looking at him in a bit of a strange way.
So all of those things also worked, and you have to allow for such things to happen because your co-actors will make certain choices, and if it's surprising, then you have to allow for such things to happen. And if it wasn't working, of course Rohan wouldn't have allowed such things to happen. Toh surprisingly tha, and Amit Sadh ka track record to acha hai hi. I remember him distinctively from Kai Poche and Unhone jo bhi army wale roles kiye hai. He has this particular technique to sort of nail the characters.
I know that he has put in the work and the right kind of training. So I always appreciate people who bring that intense passion and a work ethic-to put it a little funnily, Balls to the Wall work ethic. So that was there, and I had to just be there and respond accordingly. And for his character, I think that intensity was there, but because Abhishek's more hiding, so the intensity was not so visible. And I enjoyed the surprises his character threw at me.
