Aashim Gulati: Content more important than medium

Actor Aashim Gulati made his debut with TV mini-series Gulmohar Grand (2015), followed by Anubhav Sinha’s film Tum Bin 2 (2016) and later OTT. Having dabbled in different mediums, the youngster is letting content govern his choice of work than the platform.

“Seeing yourself on the big screen is a dream of every actor, which got fulfilled very early in my career. TV provided a good stepping stone for me. Platform does not matter if you get to work on the graph of a character and story. I just see how well the character has been written and is it contributing to taking forward the story?” says the Hostages actor on his recent trip to Lucknow where he has extensively shot for Pushpendra Nath Misra’s next Choona in the thick of pandemic (March 2021).

He is not averse to TV. “We must never say never as you don’t know what’s in store in future. TV is a different world, and the format is such that ‘thoda jaldi-jaldi kaam hota hai’, whereas web series works at its own pace. The best thing about OTT is that it helps in building the graph of the character which as an actor is very fulfilling.

Giving an example of his last series Taj: Reign of Revenge, he says, “I got to play the role of a lifetime in both the seasons. Doing historical character is very challenging but it feels very good as you get to create the character and live life as a royal prince. The costumes, jewellery, lavish sets and life of an era are very intriguing. The era was different but as an actor you need to believe it and get into its skin, else you won’t be able to do justice to it.”

Last seen in web-film U-Turn, he has a string of projects lined up. “I have dubbed for series Choona in Hindi and English and now it’s being dubbed in other languages, hope it will come out soon. Besides, I play a Punjabi popstar in Jee Karda (with Tamannaah Bhatia and Suhail Nayyar), American series Jane The Virgin’s India version Ruhi The Virgin and murder mystery film with Pankaj Tripathi, Sara Ali Khan, Karishma Kapoor. So, there is lots on the platter,” tells the actor.