Stayed unbiased while playing Harshad Mehta, says actor Pratik Gandhi

 Actor Pratik Gandhi, who plays the role of the infamous stockbroker Harshad Mehta in the web series "Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story”, says he had a neutral approach towards the character.Directed by Hansal Mehta, the 10-episode series traces the rags-to-riches story of Harshad Mehta, who single-handedly took the Indian stock market to dizzying heights, and his catastrophic downfall.

Gandhi, who started his acting career with Gujarati theatre and went on to feature in various films in the language as well as the Bollywood movie “Loveyatri”, said he spent a lot of time with the director to figure out the best way to portray the role.

The actor said he wanted to bring out every aspect of Harshad Mehta’s personality and leave it to the audience to decide if he is a negative or positive character.

I have approached this role without being biased. I had heard a lot of key words about Harshad Mehta in books, documentaries, on the Internet, and in the script like his passion, greed, a bit of ego, and confidence.

There is a thin difference between confidence and ego. Sometimes he played with ego and sometimes with confidence. I consciously kept it unbiased as a character because it is open for interpretation for audience,Gandhi told PTI in an interview.

Every person has a good and an evil side to them and when playing a real-life character it is important to highlight both, the actor added.Apart from "Scam 1992", a film on Harshad Mehta’s life, “The Big Bull”, is also in the works with Abhishek Bachchan playing the lead.

Gandhi said he is happy that storytellers are venturing into the space of financial-thrillers.

More such stories should come out, not about this particular scam but about in the genre of financial-thriller. Not a lot of films are made in this genre in India. It is an interesting genre, it is entertaining and engaging,he said.

Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story”, based on journalist Debashis Basu and Sucheta Dalal's book "The Scam", also stars Shreya Dhanwanthary, Sharib Hashmi, Satish Kaushik, Nikhil Dwivedi, Anant Mahadevan, among others.Produced by Applause Entertainment in association with Studio Next, the series premiered on SonyLIV on October 9. 

(IMAGE CREDITS:Twitter/@pratikg80)