Arshad Warsi: To be on the bigger screen you need to look a certain way irrespective of your talent

Arshad Warsi

Actor Arshad Warsi has wrapped up 2023 on a great note. Professionally, the year was quite fruitful for Arshad with 'Asur 2' becoming successful. So, as we wrap up the year, the actor shared his views on the boom of OTT and how it has changed the game during a year-end roundtable interview with Bollywood Hungama. Along with Arshad other actors present were Manoj Bajpayee, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Arjun Mathur, Aparshakti Khurana, etc. In this very conversation, Arshad shared how OTT came with loads of opportunities for great actors.

He shared, "OTT has done well, it has given opportunity to great actors. Unfortunately, it's a bitter truth but it's a truth, to be on the bigger screen, you need to look a certain way, irrespective of your talent, that's it."

He even opened up about Asur 2 being made based on the success of Asur's first season. "Nobody thought of Asur Season 2. I think S2 can only happen if S1 is worthy and that decides the capability of Season2. Most of the time the difference between a film and web series is that a series or a part 2 of a film is completely dependent on how much you like the character. The film and a web series are not dependent on the story and the character. In a web series, you need to hold the audience's interest in part 1 itself."

Discussing the films being made for OTT as compared to the big screen, Arshad opined, "After a point the film is not the actor's, it becomes a business. Somewhere there has become a space where theatres have a certain kind of releases, and so does OTT. But unfortunately, for sensible cinema, there is a very limited amount of people in our country who watch it. With a small percentage of people who watch sensible and good cinema, that limited audience cannot generate the kind of money that kind of cinema requires. So that entire dynamic gets warped."

Workwise, Arshad recently celebrated 20 years of 'Munna Bhai MBBS' by revisiting some sweet memories. Other than this, he is currently seen as a judge in 'Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa' Season 11. In terms of films, he is shooting for the multi-starrer 'Welcome To Jungle'.