Like doing complex & layered roles but don’t get offered much: Arshad Warsi's conundrum

As someone who has mostly done comedic roles, actor Arshad Warsi says web series “Asur” gave him a rare chance to play a complex and layered character.

Arshad has played serious roles in the past, most notable in the under-appreciated film “Sehar”, but comedy movies “Munna Bhai MBBS”, “Hulchul” and “Golmaal” have been more successful. In “Asur”, which has garnering a lot of critical appreciation, the 51-year-old actor plays the role of a forensic expert.

Arshad said he took up the offer as it gave him a chance to come out of the comic zone. “Two things compelled me to take up ‘Asur’. It had a great script, thrilling and unpredictable, exactly what, I feel, is required in a web series. Secondly, it was not a comic character. It was a serious, complex, layered character, something I like doing but don’t get offered much,” Arshad told PTI in an interview.

The actor said out of the 70 to 80 films that he has done, about 50 of them have been comedies.“I did only one absolutely serious film, which was ‘Seher’. My work and the film was really appreciated and now the second one is ‘Asur’ and again my work and the series has been appreciated.

“Then there are the semi-serious characters in films like ‘Ishqiya’, ‘Jolly LLB’ in which my work was loved. Thanks to these few films, I am considered a versatile actor. I really wish I get offered more serious roles,” he added.

As an artiste, Arshad said every film every role comes with its own share of challenges.“Every film and every character is a struggle and a performance pressure is there till the appreciation starts or doesn’t start (coming),” he said.

Though the actor does not believe in following any technique in portraying a role, he tries his best to capture the nuances and the little details.“Once I have heard a script and understood the character, I keep thinking about it 24/7, till the film or series is over and that is my homework or process to play any role,” he said.

Arshad said for his role of Dhananjay Rajput’s “Asur”, available on Voot, he has tried to not over-dramatise his part, keeping it as real as possible. “As actors we tend to over-dramatise a situation. In real life, when a doctor is operating on a patient, he needs to be very calm.These are the nuances that make a character believable,” he added.

The crime thriller series pits two opposing worlds against each other - of forensic science and Indian mythology.

“Mixing Hindu mythology and science was a brilliant and a difficult idea, which is one of the things that attracted me to the script. The writers of ‘Asur’ are well versed with Hindu mythology, way more than I can ever be. So as an actor it is my job to have faith in them, and that’s exactly what I did,” Arshad said.

The series has got an overwhelming response, 9.1 rating on IMDb, and the actor credits the director for creating a thrilling story.

“The director’s vision is brilliant. It's unpretentious, to the point, the background score is haunting, the editing is sharp, the visuals are mesmerising and all the actors are immensely talented. It’s difficult to go wrong with all this.”

The actor revealed that season two of "Asur" is pipeline and that the work has already begun on it.

“The writers are working on it and it is going to be an uphill task for them after the response of season one,” he said.