He may not have had any film releases this year, but actor Ali Fazal had a great year nonetheless as he returned as Guddu Pandit in the second season of web series, Mirzapur. “I never expected this to become so huge. But at that time we were very few shows down in the world of OTT,” he says about exploring digital space.

Fazal admits that initially, he was dissuaded to take up projects on the web. “I remember a lot of people telling me to focus on movies. I used to tell them that my heart is in it and I would like to experiment with it and I think I can pull it off,” the 34-year-old adds.

The actor is grateful to have received so much appreciation for reprising the role because not many would have expected him to pull off this character. “I can understand, if I were a producer, I would think twice before casting Ali Fazal in this role because images play a huge part. Your last image is a big player in your next portrayal. But Mirzapur 2 and the Death On The Nile (upcoming international film) are very different from anything I’ve portrayed/been a part of,” he says.

Before the digital boom, there was a perception that actors opting for the medium weren’t getting films and Fazal had that fear himself.

“It is the social conditioning that we have. I was like will I get typecast? Will people think I don’t have films? But you have to understand that the world got bigger. Suddenly, we are competing at the same level as any other international show,” he says.

Fazal adds the audience gave him confidence that “at the end of the day, we are storytellers”. But he hopes things would pick up for cinemas as well because “we love the flavour of 70 mm”.