Shweta Tripathi Sharma, Tanmay Dhanania and Rytasha Rathore

In February, mid-day reported that Mirzapur actor Shweta Tripathi is taking the leap to production (From fronting stories to backing them, February 18). Three months on, she is ready with her maiden theatre production. She is producing Cock, which will open in Delhi on June 6, followed by its Mumbai premiere on June 10.

“Theatre has always been my first love. Producing a play like Cock is a personal and creative decision born out of my belief that storytelling should reflect the world in all its complexity and beauty,” says the actress, whose theatre production company AllMyTea is backing it.

Originally written by British playwright Mike Bartlett, Cock is centred on a man torn between the comfort of his long-time male partner and the pull of an unexpected connection with a woman. The play will star Rytasha Rathore, Tanmay Dhanania, Sahir Mehta, and Harssh Singh, with Manish Gandhi at the helm. Tripathi says the story speaks to anyone grappling with the messy nature of love and identity. 

“We are living in a time where people are finally feeling empowered to own their identities, and Cock doesn’t shy away from the discomfort or the beauty of that journey. It’s messy, human, and real. I want to be part of stories that make you uncomfortable in the best way. Pride Month is a celebration, but it’s also a reminder that visibility, inclusion, and acceptance are ongoing battles,” she shares.

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Rytasha Rathore has done one TV show Badho Bahu, which made her a household name. People also know her as someone who speaks her mind. Her pictures on social media are different from the usual and often give out a message that one shouldn’t obsess with being perfect. The actor lost a lot of weight last year, but refuses to talk about weight loss. She would rather talk about matters close to her heart.

She says, “My weight is the least interesting thing about me. I am on a journey to be alive and present in my body, mind, heart and soul. Everything else is a byproduct of it. It is high time we stop obsessing over how women look and focus on all the other amazing things they do. But if you must know, during the first lockdown, I exercised everyday for one hour to cope with my anxiety and weight loss was just a byproduct of it. There was no extra effort, I just did all the housework and cooked my own meals and followed an overall healthier lifestyle.”

Rytasha has been promoting body positivity and the idea of putting out real body images. She says, “There is a worldwide conversation about inclusivity, and this is just one tiny aspect of it. For every shredded, ripped and perfect body the audience sees, what they don’t see are the resources that went into it in terms of time and money. Few human beings are genetically blessed with the perfect body fat to muscle ratio. Majority of the people we know in our real lives are ‘imperfect’ in some way or the other, yet they are successful, loved and doing great things in their lives. Everybody deserves to be celebrated. We cannot spend our lives feeling like prisoners in our bodies. For overall growth and fulfilment, it is important to restore a healthy relationship with our physical bodies.”

Meanwhile, on the professional front, she is happy to explore the digital medium. “The work on OTT has been more fulfilling because it is better quality in terms of writing, direction and performance. And as a quality performer, it feels like a better fit for me. Everything on TV is about TRPs, understandably, it’s the most watched medium in the country. Working on a TV show isn’t about feeding your art-hungry soul, it is more like an office job, you just do your work and take home a pay check,” she says.

Niharika Lyra Dutt - Paatal Lok

Who was the face of 2020 — cinema and series included? No doubt, Pankaj Tripathi! Just look at the year he's had, while the world was reeling in darkness. He offered inimitable lightness of touch across platforms — as the travel agent Tony in Angrezi Medium, Ovi Mahajan Sr in the Hollywood blood-fest Extraction, reprising Kaleen Bhaiya in the desi blood-fest Mirzapur 2. Or playing its opposite, the lovable, colonel father in Gunjan Saxena; carrying forward the immense charm in Anurag Basu's Ludo, and the solid series, Criminal Justice: Behind Closed Doors.

Likewise, how could you take your eyes off Jaideep Ahlawat in Paatal Lok, or Jitendra Kumar in both Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan and Panchayat. Or not fall for the easy-going Pratik Gandhi as Harshad Mehta in Scam 1992, or Shreya Chaudhary in Bandish Bandits (even the male lead Ritwik Bhowmik), apart from veterans Naseeruddin Shah, Atul Kulkarni, especially the quiet Sheeba Chaddha.

Leads and even key supporting cast apart, ones who stood out in 2020 though, I think, were second/third row, pretty much unknown actors, in relatively bit parts, shining still, as they got to explore their roles further.

Which is what a series (as against a film) allows for. In that sense, this was the year of the casting director, besides content, being king. I couldn't help but notice with immense joy some fresh faces, who'd be relegated to walk-on parts, or 'junior artistes', if you may, in traditional Bollywood!

Yes, this is the glowingly warm show about the urban gram sachiv (Jitendra Kumar) and the rural prashan pati (the great Raghubir Yadav). But you take away the two adorable bumblers Vikas and Prahlad, who hang with the lead characters, and Panchayat (on Amazon Prime Video) would lose half its punch (lines/moments)! They're so good. But who are they? Exactly! Hope to see more of them.

Paatal Lok (on Amazon Prime Video) is a deathly gritty series about deceitful, greedy men and the madness they're capable of. For heaven's sake, you get hit really hard by Sanjiv Mehra (Neeraj Kabi), Hathi Ram (Jaideep Ahlawat), young Ansari (Ishwak Singh), or quite literally, Hathoda Tyagi (Abhishek Banerjee). And then the two phenomenal women show up — Sanjiv's young love-interest Sara (Niharika Lyra Dutt), and his disturbed wife Dolly (Swastika Mukherjee) — the softness of their screen presence blows you away, way more. How's that even possible? Evidently is.

What's there not to endlessly admire about the ensemble cast of the financial thriller on SonyLIV, where everyone brilliantly plays somebody who existed in real life — from BSE's Big Bull Harshad Mehta (Pratik Gandhi), business reporter Sucheta Dalal (Shreya Dhanwanthary), down to the sharp CBI officer Raghavan (Rajat Kapoor). But Harshad's earnest-looking brother, Ashwin (Hemant Kher) — man, did they get the actual guy (who's alive) to play the part, or what? That's what I thought. He's that great!

Sure the quasi-reality series Masaba Masaba has got to be about Masaba, and in equal measure her mom Neena Gupta. And then, on occasion, in this six-episode Netflix show, Masaba's friend Gia walks into the screen, performing like there's no camera before her, and I can't help but wonder: Why haven't I seen her before? Or have I!

Ghosh Babu is the sort of a portly yin to the yang of muscular Haryanvi/Punjabi drunk affluent goons hosting a wedding in Manali over yet another crime series, Undekhi (on SonyLIV). The entire cast stands out for pulling off through performances, what portions of the script lacks in its coherence, sometimes. You notice gems of a turn — from Papaji (Harsh Chhaya), daughter-in-law to be (Apeksha Singh), her videographer friend (Ayn Zoya), her fiancé (Ankur Rathee), his badass brother from another mother, Rinku (Surya Sharma)…. But Bengali DSP Ghosh (Dibyendu Bhattacharya) has all your attention — through and through!

No, I can't remember Anupria Goenka from Padmaavat, just noticing it on her IMDb. Likewise she was more or less a fleeting presence (by way of impact) in Asur (on Voot ), and you watched her in Aashram (MX Player) in the same year. Once she's familiar to the audience from Criminal Justice 1, you catch her so naturally matching wits with Pankaj Tripathi on Criminal Justice: Behind Closed Doors (on Disney+Hotstar) and go: What a find! This is to take away nothing from the star of the show, Kirti Kulhari, widening her range from the breezy Four More Shots Please, with what's probably the most painfully felt performance of the year. And, hell, how on-point is Jisshu Sengupta as the top lawyer.

Without an exception, everyone on Amazon Prime Video's iconic Mirzapur series is by now a star in their own right, known as well by their screen names — Guddu (Ali Fazal), Munna (Divyenndu Sharma), Bablu (Vikrant Massey), Beena Ji (Rasika Dugal), Golu (Shweta Tripathi)… Yet, Isha Talwar shows up as a young politician Madhuri Yadav in Season 2, with a quiet strut, and damn, you sit up, and take notice.

Ram Madhvani's delightfully dark, authentic adaptation of Dutch series Penoza (on Disney+Hotstar) of course gave Sushmita Sen a new lease of life, in a heavy part that she probably wasn't offered even at her peak. Sikander Kher's solid too. But I'm talking about discovering faces. And, well, how do you replicate the swag coupled with vulnerability of the cop (Vikas Kumar) investigating a drug/murder case, and the rich brat (Ankur Bhatia), navigating the law. Blown, totally.

Of course Asur on Voot Select is Arshad Warsi's comeback, in every way. And a launch-pad of sorts for young Barun Sobti. Like with all the major Indian series, the ensemble cast is killing it too. Sometimes though, I suspect, it's just about a presence on screen — the fact that they're there; not even doing or saying much, but looking every bit in the moment. That's what viscerally draws you in towards them. That was Riddhi Dogra as a mid-level CBI officer to me. Just there!