'Paatal Lok' broke my comedic image: Abhishek Banerjee

Mumbai: After starring in back-to-back comedy films, Abhishek Banerjee confessed to being scared of getting typecast, but his role of the fearsome killer Hathoda Tyagi in 'Paatal Lok' helped him break out of that image.

The Bollywood actor has emerged as one of the most successful faces on OTT platforms with movies such as 'Unpaused' and 'Ajeeb Daastaans' post the critical and commercial success of the 'Amazon Prime Video' neo-noir show.

Banerjee shot to fame with 'Stree', 'Bala' and 'Dream Girl' that cemented his position as a comedy star, but he had hoped that people will also take note of his dark role in the Marathi film 'Ajji' and his wish came true.

"I was getting a bit scared of typecasting and felt why are people only offering me comedy? Why are they not able to see beyond my comedy and that too when I had done 'Ajji'?" he said.

He added, "I was wondering as to how I am getting the same kind of roles only to play and how do I break this. Thankfully, 'Paatal Lok' broke my comedic image for me. People started realising that I am not only good at comedy and that I can pull off different kinds of characters."

"It is also necessary to take risks. After a time, you will get bored of doing the same thing and the audience and the maker too will get bored. So why not try and apply different rules with different characters?" Abhishek stated.

Speaking on being more attentive towards what he is being offered to him now, Banerjee mentioned, "I am paying more attention to the characters and I understand that there are some characters that are going to be easy and some are not going to be easy. I am trying to strike a balance. I am not saying 'I am not taking up easy characters' because that is my bread and butter. But I will also experiment with roles."