Bhanu Uday Goswami: Skewed view that TV is only seen by women

Not one to constantly be on the radar Bhanu Uday Goswami prefers his work to do the talking Life has come full circle for the actor who had forayed into television with his cop act on Special Squad as he dons the uniform again for Rudrakaal At a time when OTT is booming in India he bets big on television saying that the action show is the perfect fit for the medium that has ldquomaximum viewership that films or OTT cannot beatrdquoEdited excerpts from the interviewDoes the show remind you of Special SquadPeople have been pointing it out but I donrsquot see any similarities The only similarity is that I play a cop on both shows Even in that regard they are different because Special Squad was more forensicbased while Rudrakaal is investigative My role as Aryan Khanna in Special Squad was loved by people but Irsquove never repeated that consciously I want to be a versatile actorDo you believe Rudrakaal would work better on an OTT platformThe objective of doing this show was to bring good content which is usually associated with films or OTT onto the largest platform mdash television If you consider the reach of a show the biggest web series will have 15 million viewers but the reach of Star Plus is about 250 million So there is no comparison I feel we are not providing highquality content on television Rudrakaal is a huge step on that front I am not certain about the future but this show will be a landmark on Indian televisionA still from the RudrakaalContentbacked shows like Yudh or POW didnrsquot manage to garner TRPs and were eventually pulled off air Do you fear Rudrakaal may meet a similar fate since daily soaps are targeted at womenWho watches cricket on TV Men do If you donrsquot give men the kind of content that they want to watch what option do they have Itrsquos a skewed perspective that television is mainly viewed by women You canrsquot keep making a certain kind of family drama and expect everyone to watch it I have no fear as far as the ratings are concerned Every time I do a show people ask me if I am worried about the fate of the show but I am here for the last 15 years doing shows that are far from typicalThe series must have been physically draining considering you were injured twice during the shootIt was physically draining but I enjoy action and did the stunts on my own For Rudrakaal I needed to put on weight as Iplay a 40yearold I had to bulk up quickly since the show was to go on floors in 1520 days I managed to put on 10 kilos within 20 days My body is not used to so much weight which is probably why my knee got injured while doing one of the stuntsHow would you critique yourself after seeing the showI havenrsquot seen the show In fact I never watch my own work I recently watched Stories by Rabindranath Tagore during the lockdown and was able to enjoy it I was able to see myself objectively and enjoy it for what it was rather than obsessing about my performanceWhat else is in the pipelineI have just finished a big film which will release this year and I have five daysrsquo work left on an Amazon Prime Video series