'I have never felt stereotyped'

Candid talk

In a career spanning over three decades, Ashish Vidyarthi has majorly essayed roles that portray him as a ‘bad man’. Even his Wikipedia page describes him as an actor “noted for his antagonist characters”. But nothing discourages this prolific performer to steer away from doing roles he believes in —even if that means getting typecast. “Frankly, I have never felt stereotyped. This is because I try to add different layers and dimensions to characters I play onscreen,” he tells Metrolife.

The National Award winning actor will now be seen in the second season of ‘24’ in which he is playing a druglord, Roshan Sherchan. This role again paints him in negative hues, but the 53-year-old is quick to retort that he is looking at the character as a “person who has made certain life choices, but isn’t a bad person”.“There are many shades to this character and I have tried to create a person who is believable,” he says.

“Every character in this show will catch the imagination of people,” he adds.This is not the first time Vidyarthi will be seen on the small screen; the Drohkaal actor has done several TV serials before and was first noticed in Sai Paranjpye comedy series Hum Panchi Ek Chawl Se. After this he did a couple of serials before graduating to Hindi and regional films. The reason he agreed to do 24 was that there was clarity in concept and execution. “We all know how well received season one was. The team was able to set the benchmark for content and concept. So it wasn’t difficult to say yes to them,” he says.

The actor, who has featured in films like Aligarh, Barfi! and Haider, regularly, appears in regional films. In fact, his appearance is more frequent there than in Bollywood. “After 1999, the kind of roles I was getting in Bollywood weren’t great. So, I started working extensively in the south,” says Vidyarthi who has worked in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali and Kannada films.

“But in the last couple of years, I have started getting interesting offers. So, you will see me often,” he adds.