Viineet Kumar: I love to experiment as an actor

A still from Betaal

One expected a worthy thriller from Shah Rukh Khan's Red Chillies Entertainment and Blumhouse Productions, Hollywood's go-to studio for horror outings. However, Betaal, which dropped online earlier this week, was yet another disappointment from Netflix India. The thriller has been mercilessly trolled on social media as much for its wafer-thin plot as for its unintentional comedy.

Leading man Viineet Kumar though is unfazed by the criticism. "I have become thick-skinned over the years. I have seen so much during [my stint in the industry] that trolls barely affect me," he says.

In telling the story of a counter-insurgency squad that has to battle an 'undead' East India Company officer and his battalion of zombie redcoats, the four-part series hoped to introduce the country to zombie thrillers, a popular genre in the West. Kumar defends the makers for treading a lesser-taken path. "The idea was to try something that had never been done before. It's one of the first Indian series that [combines elements of] thriller, action, zombies and horror. I knew it is not an [audience]-friendly genre. But it was a risk I took. When you experiment, a backlash is expected. "

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