For Abhishek Banerjee, hard work and perseverance has finally paid off as he was recently honoured for his portrayal in web series Paatal Lok. The actor says it has been quite a career graph which began from doing bit roles in films to casting to now a much-in-demand artiste.

“I look at the trophy, more like I steal glances every time I walk past it. I just can’t believe ki sahi mein mere ghar pe ye hain. I am quite humbled because it is a validation of the fact that I’m on the right track. You know how it is difficult to impress. It is a very different kind of satisfaction,” he says.

Banerjee, awarded as the best supporting actor for his portrayal of the lead antagonist, looks back at his journey and muses, “Like everyone I also came to Mumbai to make it big as an actor. Then when you don’t get to do roles which you might have wanted to do in your ’20s, with filmmakers you like as they usually cast raw actors, I thought kuch problem hai. Casting became the route to survival.”

But he is proud of his journey. “Casting helps you be in the drill so I know what’s happening around. I thought to myself that now the only way to keep the actor inside of me alive is to do short films, indie films and just keep up the process. I worked with Devashish Makhija and then Amar Kaushik saw it and Stree (2018) happened,” he says.

“Then opportunities started coming in and Paatal Lok also happened. I realised only last year what going viral means, what being famous means,” he adds.

“This year has been a mix of bitter sweet due to the pandemic and so many things changed not just for me but for other actors, creative and makers,” says Abhishek Banerjee, who is feeling good after a trip back home. With varied releases on OTT and his performance in Pataal Lok, as Hathoda Tyagi, who hardly had a few dialogues topping the list, Banerjee proved his versatility with a comic role in PariWar, a dramatic act in Mirzapur 2, and the film Bhonsle.

Elaborating his point, the actor says that this year has given us hope. “No matter the crisis, there is always a ray of light. I was shattered in the first few months of lockdown and understandably so, as I had just started my career as an actor. You are signing projects, shooting non-stop, life is looking busy and then suddenly things came to a standstill! You remember parental advice about saving for a rainy day. So, I wondered when things would be normal again? Fighting that fear was necessary and work helped me through that,” he shares.

He is thankful that the projects he had shot for in 2019, aired this year. People appreciated his performances, including A-list actors, which encouraged him. “I was waiting to see myself in these roles as they were all critical to my career and craft. And getting success through those roles, I felt hopeful that if I worked hard and follow each day with process, I will get results. I’ve got more than I could have asked for with Paatal Lok. Friends Vicky Kaushal and Rajkummar Rao got in touch and then Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor spoke to me appreciating my work, it felt great,” reveals Banerjee, who has Dostana 2, Helmet, Aankh Micholi and Rashmi Rocket lined up next year. 

Currently the toast of the town for his Paatal Lok act, Abhishek Banerjee decodes his serial killer character Hathoda Tyagi
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; May 26, 2020)

It is 9 pm when we finally get on a call with Abhishek Banerjee, the man everyone's talking about since Pataal Lok dropped online 10 days ago. Breaking down the gruesome scene — where his character breaks open the skulls of three boys — may not be the ideal subject to open an interview with, especially when he has finished his dinner only minutes ago. But it is, after all, the chilling scene that marks the inception of Hathoda Tyagi, a character that goes on to haunt you for the remaining six episodes.

"A scene like that can't be easy for any actor," he begins with a laugh, before adding, "But because we know we are acting, we are able to bring in that extra gruesomeness to the sequence. I don't believe that the world can be so cruel, but then, we have heard stories of spine-chilling murders where a husband chopped his wife's body into pieces and threw them into a tandoor. Sudip [Sharma, creator] wanted to show the reality, but the intention was to make it graphic so that people are dissuaded from committing crimes."

Banerjee, counted among the top casting directors of the industry, isn't a trained actor. Yet, his portrayal of the ruthless hired killer has earned a nod of approval from even the sharpest critics. "You learn acting by being in casting rooms. Over the past 10-15 years, as a casting director, I have been practising acting every day when I am giving cues to actors or explaining what the script expects of them. But nothing prepares you to play Hathoda Tyagi. This is a character which demands your all."

Where the audience and the industry alike should be welcoming a talent like him with open arms, Banerjee has been fielding criticism for facing the camera despite being a casting director. His transition from behind the camera to in front of it became a talking point among detractors, compelling filmmakers Anurag Kashyap and Hansal Mehta to leap to his defence. Banerjee is unfazed by the noise surrounding his graduation to acting. "It's the director's call who he chooses to put in front of the camera. There are many in the industry who multi-task. There are lyricists and musicians who are actors too. Why is this a problem?"

In telling the story of four criminals, Paatal Lok — which is inspired by former Tehelka editor-in-chief and rape-accused Tarun Tejpal's book, The Story of my Assassins — deftly shows how society plays a role in creating the villains. Was it a conscious move to humanise the criminals? "Aren't all criminals humans, created by the same society? We wanted to give the world a peek into the psyche of criminals. Tyagi's persona is determined by his social background. This is the journey of a man who is wronged, rejected, and has no one but dogs to give him solace. I tried to capture his grief and emptiness. It's important to understand that he is not angry, but disappointed with the system."

Even as it has been widely applauded, a grievance against the show is that it normalises violence. Banerjee laughs, before retorting. "My only response to those saying this is, will you please read the newspapers? If you feel uncomfortable about the visual depiction of what happens in our own country, remember that's how unaware and distanced you are from the real world."

The actor and talent scout on navigating his way from conducting auditions to cracking them
Kunal Guha (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 24, 2020)

Playing a ruthless, hammer-wielding assassin in the web series Paatal Lok has turned Abhishek Banerjee into an overnight sensation. In fact, several memes have compared his onscreen avatar to the Marvel superhero, Thor. He finds the comparison hilarious. “And here I am scrubbing utensils in my briefs,” he says, referring to the mundane chores keeping him busy during the lockdown.

The 35-year-old actor has featured in numerous supporting roles in films such as Stree (2018), Bala (2019) and Dream Girl (2019). But interestingly, he’s also a prominent casting director, credited for over 70 films, including Angrezi Medium (2020), The Sky Is Pink (2019) and Student Of The Year 2 (2019). His talent firm, Casting Bay, which he founded along with fellow casting agent Anmol Ahuja, clocks 11 years in 2020.

Banerjee had his first brush with the big screen when he bagged a “crowd scene role” in Rang De Basanti (2006). Then a third-year student and an active member of the dramatics society at Delhi’s Kirori Mal College, the gig somehow led him to believe that he had “arrived”. “I felt that since Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra had seen my talent, I was sorted,” he says. When the one-scene gig didn’t translate into much, Banerjee resigned himself to conducting theatre workshops after graduation. But as destiny would have it, he caught the eye of casting director Gautam Kishanchandani, who was in Delhi with director Anurag Kashyap to scout actors for Dev D in 2008. Kishanchandani tasked him with providing dialogue cues to auditioning actors, and ultimately asked him to come to Mumbai.

And so, like countless others, Banerjee shifted to Mumbai to realise his tinseltown dreams. Queuing up for auditions in Aaram Nagar studios sensitised him to the film industry’s “disorganised” recruitment process, where the supply far exceeds the demand. “I was feeling disillusioned as an actor but had to feed myself,” he says. Following brief casting stints, he got a chance to assist Kishanchandani with Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai (2010). “I got to deliver lines meant for Ajay Devgn and Emraan Hashmi during auditions and began to enjoy the process.”

Soon enough, Banerjee bagged his first solo casting break for The Dirty Picture (2011). The film’s astounding success resulted in a flurry of work and Banerjee set up his own talent agency the same year. “I was 24 then and had been in Mumbai for only a year-and-a-half, so it was a big deal,” he says.

Over the years, Banerjee has often been drawn to roles he was meant to cast for. While nominating himself would amount to a “conflict of interest”, at times, filmmakers have themselves asked him to take a crack at them. He recalls how director Rajkumar Gupta almost considered him for a role in Ghanchakkar (2013), but when Banerjee auditioned for it, his performance fell short and Namit Das landed the role. “I had recited the lines so many times the rawness had disappeared,” he remembers. Banerjee didn’t take this rejection well and plunged into casting gigs, while secretly “working on the craft”. “While conducting auditions, I got to act every day for eight hours with different actors… it was like a riyaz of acting,” he shares.

To test his skills, he latched onto every blink-and-miss role that came his way. “In Go Goa Gone (2013), they called me for a five-minute role for which I was paid five grand. In Bombay Talkies (2013), I just had a 10-second role but it was a learning experience,” says Banerjee.

His first prominent part came with Devashish Makhija’s Ajji (2017), a dark, modern retelling of ‘Red Riding Hood’. “I felt he was pulling my leg and just wanted me to cast for the film,” says Banerjee, who felt the role required him to shed all his inhibitions. “I was playing a child rapist. How do you train yourself to pull that off?” The critically-acclaimed film slipped through the cracks, but injected Banerjee with the confidence he needed.

Soon after, he landed his memorable turn in Amar Kaushik’s sleeper-hit Stree, where he played the role of Rajkummar Rao’s friend Jaana. “It got me in the public eye and, before I knew it, I was being considered for Dream Girl and Sujoy Ghosh’s horror film,” he says. For Amar Kaushik’s social comedy Bala, Banerjee had already lined up actors to play Ajju, the character he eventually essayed himself on Kaushik’s insistence. “Those I had shortlisted later joked, ‘tu humaara role kha gaya’.”

Today, as Banerjee juggles acting gigs with casting commitments, he says his process of scoping for talent remains the same. “I still visit theatres across the country to find talent,” he says, adding that he sometimes regrets his casting decisions when “those who crack auditions don’t follow through with their performance on set”.

What would be his dream role? “I want to play a cop once since my dad was with the CISF,” he says.

Abhishek Banerjee on scouting actors who became big names and working with Varun Dhawan and Kartik Aaryan-Janhvi Kapoor
Akash Bhatnagar (MUMBAI MIRROR; February 12, 2020)

In 2010, Abhishek Banerjee got a head-start in Bollywood as a casting director and went on to scout talent for films like No One Killed Jessica, The Dirty Picture and Gabbar Is Back. It wasn’t until 2018 that he came into his own as an actor, the goofy sidekick Jana in the Rajkummar Rao and Shraddha Kapoor’s horror-comedy Stree. “I was rejected in the audition but Dinesh Vijan (producer) liked my tape better than the guy who was selected,” he shares, adding that a lot of people believed he did the casting for this film as well. “When they call me for meetings, things get awkward when I correct them,” he laughs.

Abhishek is also often mistaken as one of the writers of Anushka Sharma’s horror film Pari though he was not associated with it in any capacity. “I get calls from filmmakers to write scripts. When I tell them it wasn’t me, they accuse me of lying,” he chuckles. Coincidentally, he had teased the real writer of the film (who happens to be his namesake) about the potential confusion but never thought it would come true.

This year, he’s working in two Karan Johar productions—Dostana 2 with Kartik Aaryan and Janhvi Kapoor and Mr Lele, fronted by Varun Dhawan. By his own admission, his innings as an actor started earlier than he had anticipated. “After all this time lapsed, I figured I would start my acting career like Boman Irani (who debuted while in his 40s),” he deadpans, excited to start work with Varun next month. “He has quirks and innocence working for him, like most of my characters. Even Shashank (Khaitan, director) sir insists we rehearse together.”

In Dostana 2, Abhishek joins Kartik and Janhvi, as “a quirky, naïve Punjabi boy”. The second schedule of the film, which marks the film debut of TV actor Lakshya, wrapped up in December.

Besides being associated with some big projects as a casting director, Abhishek also auditioned actors who went on to become big names. “I am proud to say that Siddhant Chaturvedi (MC Sher in Gully Boy) is my find,” he beams. Then, there was Vicky Kaushal, long before he won the National Award for playing a braveheart army man in Uri: The Surgical Strike. “When I was an associate, I auditioned him for a part in (Raj Kumar Gupta’s Emraan Hashmi, Vidya Balan-starrer) Ghanchakkar. Everyone was intrigued by him as he was (action director) Sham Kaushal’s son. I instantly knew that he’d become a star one day. Also, before sharing screen space with Rajkummar, I had tested him for a role in the 2010 film Knock Out, which was eventually played by Apoorva Lakhia.”

Abhishek Banerjee, who’s received high praise for his first big film turn, on the ultimate crossover — from scouting for talent to becoming one
Natasha Coutinho (MUMBAI MIRROR; September 18, 2018)

Abhishek Banerjee, who plays Jana, one of Rajkummar Rao’s two best friends in Amar Kaushik’s recently released sleeper hit, Stree, may be getting noticed for his work now, but the actor has been around for much longer. Not many know that Abhishek is a casting director who has scouted for talent in films like Shree Narayan Singh’s Batti Gul Meter Chalu, Vishal Bhardwaj’s Pataakha (co-casting with Gautam Kishanchandani), Punit Malhotra’s Student Of The Year 2 and Abhishek Varman’s multi starrer, Kalank, among others.

And even though he found firm footing in the film industry as a casting director, the 33-year-old Delhi boy with a theatre background admits that he had arrived in Mumbai 10 years ago to become an actor. “But I realised that the casting process is too difficult to breach. It was a completely disorganised industry with few key players. Fortunately, I got an opportunity to assist Gautam Kishanchandani, and found that I enjoyed the process,” he informs, adding that the casting room doubled up as an acting class for him. “I was interacting with so many actors and learning minute details about the craft.”

It was almost serendipitous how his newfound passion ultimately paved way for his first love. “I knew Amar since No One Killed Jessica. He was the associate director on the film while I was the associate casting director. He was livid when my casting partner Anmol Ahuja and I couldn’t work with him on Stree but when I asked him if there was a role for me in the film, that really moved him,” Abhishek reminisces, quick to clarify that he doesn’t usually pitch his name for projects. “It’s very embarrassing. I don’t want actors to think that I am hijacking their jobs when I am just as passionate about acting as they are.”

Recalling memories of his first big film as an actor — he has previously played the antagonist in Devashish Makhija’s Ajji last year — Abhishek smiles, “We didn’t face any difficulties while shooting in Chanderi. We fell in love with the town and its people and vice versa. The shopkeepers knew what characters we were playing and would try to get an idea of the story. We climbed on roofs to fly kites, ate heeng (asafoetida) samosas, polished off 10 plates of dal at a dhaba (five of which were apparently accounted for by his co-star, Aparshakti Khurana).”

Next up, the newbie has already signed two more films. “I’m doing Rajkummar Rao and Mouni Roy’s Made in China and Bhonsle featuring Manoj Bajpayee. I’m also considering a few good acting jobs right now. I’m glad to learn that people can imagine me in unique characters.”

Is casting taking a backseat now? Of course not,” he says. “I am motivated to do more good work and get some amazing actors to shine on-screen. Acting might be my first love but I will always be married to casting,” he adds.