Dulquer Salmaan: Hope OTT will have only shows in future

Dulquer Salmaan in Guns & Gulaabs

Within the space of a week, Dulquer Salmaan would have made appearances on both our laptops as well as the big screen. His maiden web series, Guns & Gulaabs, drops online tomorrow, followed by the Malayalam movie, King of Kotha, next Friday. To him, the fact that the two distinct stories are reaching audiences through different platforms shows that now is a good time for content. "Wherever there is great content and whatever opportunities we get as actors, we will grab them," he smiles.

It is this passion to tell unheard stories that brought him to Guns & Gulaabs, also featuring Rajkummar Rao, Gulshan Devaiah and Adarsh Gourav. The Netflix offering marks his OTT debut, but to Salmaan, the medium is secondary. What primarily matters is whether the story resonates with him. Raj-DK's quirky crime comedy, set in the fictional town of Gulaabganj, delivered in that regard. "You don't look at which medium these stories are being played out on. You would rather do great work than think, ‘Oh, this is web. I will wait for a theatrical offering.' Guns & Gulaabs was an easy choice to make because of how its world looked and how the characters were. It stood out from all the [offers] I was getting. We have had many serious series, but this was a clutter-breaker. I was the last one to come on board. I wanted to experience Raj-DK's world. Also, I had been curious to see how long-format storytelling worked," he says.

But every shift brings with it pros and cons. As much as Salmaan is thrilled about unconventional stories getting their moment in the sun, thanks to digital entertainment, he worries about the demarcation of films. "I feel bad about the labelling [of movies]. Sometimes when a film doesn't find acceptance in theatres, people say, ‘This was an OTT film.' When a film becomes massive online, the chatter is, ‘This should have been released in theatres.' Who decides that? I'm hoping we can continue to draw audiences to theatres. Some [middle-of-the-road] films need encouragement [by way of footfall, otherwise] there might come a time when they won't get made. All kinds of films must get made. Maybe we'll reach a time where OTT [platforms] will have only shows, and films will be largely [meant for] theatres."