Shahid Kapoor on his OTT debut with Farzi: ‘It is a lot of firsts’

Farzi marks Shahid Kapoor’s OTT debut in his career of twenty years. Talking about the same, he said, “It is a lot of firsts. We started talking about the show even before everybody started talking about OTT as an option. When I say everybody, I mean the film fraternity. I love their (Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK) shows. I love The Family Man one and two,” shared Shahid, who was first approached by Raj & DK for a film eight years ago.

The actor added, “They called me for a film and I said ya that’s ok but what are you doing in show format and they are like, ‘Are you serious? Do you want to do a show?’ I said, ‘I would love to collaborate with you guys.’ They had an idea which they had narrated to me eight years ago as a movie. And at that time, DK had said it is too big in terms of length to fit into a story and I think the best thing that happened to Farzi is it didn’t become a movie because I don’t think we would have been able to do justice to it. Here, we have the first season which is equal to two-and-half movies. If people like it, we will make another season then another. And the cast they put together, the characters they have put together and the way they have put the entire story together lends itself to more and more time. By the time I finished (playing) Sunny, I felt that it was just the beginning of Sunny (for me).”

Shahid Kapoor then shared his experience of starring opposite Vijay Sethupathi. He said, “My first time with Vijay sir. When we launched the teaser of Farzi, I called him ‘Makkal Selvan’ (people’s treasure in Tamil). I am going to say ‘Makkal Selvan’ to him again. He has the personality and it suits him. It is such a beautiful term for him. It has been a privilege to work with him. We don’t have so much to do together. We are always running parallel to each other and there are times when we cross tracks. And whatever little I worked with him and even while we are promoting, I find his mind interesting. He is truly an actor at heart. I wish to do much more work with him and there’s so much to learn from him.”

Shahid further revealed how Raj & DK never offered him Farzi officially but he approached them at the time when they were still conceptualising the show.

“The way the show happened was that I pounced on Raj & DK and I asked them what they have. I don’t think they officially came to me to offer me a show. They were in the process of developing it and that’s when I showed interest in doing something with them on OTT. We spent five to six months talking about the show. They would take me through the show, whether I liked it or not. I would give my feedback,” the actor revealed.

Calling his process “instinctive”, Shahid Kapoor shared his experience of working in a long format show.

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“It (OTT) is an opportunity, as an actor to bring more to it. When you are doing something short format, you can be more attacking in terms of the way you approach a character. Sometimes that works better. I don’t like attacking characters. I like to pull people to screen, it should be immersive. I enjoy that. I don’t have a process. I like to do things instinctively.

“I enjoy the immersive experience as a viewer and hence it comes to me naturally as an actor. I love the long format for that reason. I probably consume more in terms of hours on long format than a film in a theatre. I felt comfortable and I was looking forward to the opportunity,” Shahid concluded.

Farzi will stream on Amazon Prime Video from February 10 in Hindi and Tamil.