Shabana’s shikayat with OTT: Why should it run after mainstream stars?
Rishabh Suri (HINDUSTAN TIMES; April 17, 2023)

After featuring in the 2021 period drama series The Empire, Shabana Azmi worked on another big-budget streaming series — Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi spectacle, Halo. Even as the veteran actor continues to make strides in the OTT space — long considered a democratic and empowering format — she is afraid that ‘star culture’, which has been discussed widely in the big screen film space, has crept into the web space, too.

Azmi says, “Mujhe OTT se ek shikayat hai. The fact is that it is a tremendous platform that can and has created its own stars. But now, everybody is running after mainstream actors, who are in any case doing so much work!”

The 72-year-old is baffled that OTT should have to count on star power to stay relevant. She says, “Why shouldn’t this medium grab the opportunity to say: ‘At the moment, there are five-six mainstream stars, and look at the amount of work we are doing? Why shouldn’t there be 100 stars that we should be able to choose from?’ OTT should do that, instead of mimicking what mainstream cinema is already doing.”

Azmi, who will be seen next in the film Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahaani, reasons that unlike for theatrical releases, streaming doesn’t have to earn a lot of revenue right in the first weekend. “You don’t have to grab eyeballs right in the first weekend. [OTT] has such a longer shelf life, bahut waqt [mil] sakta hai, to be able to recover that money,” she ends.

What got under Mithun da’s skin?
Did you know that before he became a star, actor Mithun Chakraborty was insecure of his looks? Shabana Azmi, who starred alongside the former in films such as Hum Paanch (1980) and Jhoothi Shaan (1991), said in an interview to CNN, “Janki Kutir (Mumbai) was a place where all kinds of strugglers were always coming, and Abba and Mummy (poet Kaifi Azmi and actor Shaukat Kaifi) were always encouraging... But Mithun Chakraborty was very conscious of the fact that he had jutting teeth, so he used to smile (with his mouth closed). He was also conscious of the fact that he had dark skin. But I really have to give it to my mother, who made him drop his inhibitions.”