The year of the other actor

Who was the face of 2020 mdash cinema and series included No doubt Pankaj Tripathi Just look at the year hes had while the world was reeling in darkness He offered inimitable lightness of touch across platforms mdash as the travel agent Tony in Angrezi Medium Ovi Mahajan Sr in the Hollywood bloodfest Extraction reprising Kaleen Bhaiya in the desi bloodfest Mirzapur 2 Or playing its opposite the lovable colonel father in Gunjan Saxena carrying forward the immense charm in Anurag Basus Ludo and the solid series Criminal Justice Behind Closed DoorsLikewise how could you take your eyes off Jaideep Ahlawat in Paatal Lok or Jitendra Kumar in both Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan and Panchayat Or not fall for the easygoing Pratik Gandhi as Harshad Mehta in Scam 1992 or Shreya Chaudhary in Bandish Bandits even the male lead Ritwik Bhowmik apart from veterans Naseeruddin Shah Atul Kulkarni especially the quiet Sheeba ChaddhaLeads and even key supporting cast apart ones who stood out in 2020 though I think were secondthird row pretty much unknown actors in relatively bit parts shining still as they got to explore their roles furtherWhich is what a series as against a film allows for In that sense this was the year of the casting director besides content being king I couldnt help but notice with immense joy some fresh faces whod be relegated to walkon parts orjunior artistes if you may in traditional BollywoodChandan Roy Vikas Faisal Malik Prahlad PanchayatChandan Roy and Faisal Malik PanchayatYes this is the glowingly warm show about the urban gram sachiv Jitendra Kumar and the rural prashan pati the great Raghubir Yadav But you take away the two adorable bumblers Vikas and Prahlad who hang with the lead characters and Panchayat on Amazon Prime Video would lose half its punch linesmoments Theyre so good But who are they Exactly Hope to see more of themNiharika Lyra Dutt Sara Swastika Mukherjee Dolly Paatal LokPaatal Lok on Amazon Prime Video is a deathly gritty series about deceitful greedy men and the madness theyre capable of For heavens sake you get hit really hard by Sanjiv Mehra Neeraj Kabi Hathi Ram Jaideep Ahlawat young Ansari Ishwak Singh or quite literally Hathoda Tyagi Abhishek Banerjee And then the two phenomenal women show up mdash Sanjivs young loveinterest Sara Niharika Lyra Dutt and his disturbed wife Dolly Swastika Mukherjee mdash the softness of their screen presence blows you away way more Hows that even possible Evidently isHemant Kher Ashwin Scam 1992Hemant Kher Scam 1992Whats there not to endlessly admire about the ensemble cast of the financial thriller on SonyLIV where everyone brilliantly plays somebody who existed in real life mdash from BSEs Big Bull Harshad Mehta Pratik Gandhi business reporter Sucheta Dalal Shreya Dhanwanthary down to the sharp CBI officer Raghavan Rajat Kapoor But Harshads earnest looking brother Ashwin Hemant Kher mdash man did they get the actual guy whos alive to play the part or what Thats what I thought Hes that greatRytasha Rathore Gia Masaba MasabaSure the quasireality series Masaba Masaba has got to be about Masaba and in equal measure her mom Neena Gupta And then on occasion in this sixepisode Netflix show Masabas friend Gia walks into the screen performing like theres no camera before her and I cant help but wonder Why havent I seen her beforeOr have IDibyendu Bhattacharya DSP Ghosh UndekhiDibyendu Bhattacharya UndekhiGhosh Babu is the sort of a portly yin to the yang of muscular HaryanviPunjabi drunk affluent goons hosting a wedding in Manali over yet another crime series Undekhi on SonyLIV The entire cast stands out for pulling off through performances what portions of the script lacks in its coherence sometimes You notice gems of a turn mdash from Papaji Harsh Chhaya daughterinlaw to be Apeksha Singh her videographer friend Ayn Zoya her fianceacute Ankur Rathee his badass brother from another mother Rinku Surya Sharmahellip But Bengali DSP Ghosh Dibyendu Bhattacharya has all your attention mdash through and throughAnupriya Goenka Nikhat Criminal Justice 2No I cant remember Anupriya Goenka from Padmaavat just noticing it on her IMDb Likewise she was more or less a fleeting presence by way of impact in Asur on Voot and you watched her in Aashram MX Player in the same year Once shes familiar to the audience from Criminal Justice 1 you catch her so naturally matching wits with Pankaj Tripathi on Criminal Justice Behind Closed Doors on DisneyHotstar and go What a find This is to take away nothing from the star of the show Kirti Kulhari widening her range from the breezy Four More Shots Please with whats probably the most painfully felt performance of the year And hell how onpoint is Jisshu Sengupta as the top lawyerIsha Talwar Madhuri in Mirzapur 2Without an exception everyone on Amazon Prime Videos iconic Mirzapur series is by now a star in their own right known as well by their screen names mdash Guddu Ali Fazal Munna Divyenndu Sharma Bablu Vikrant Massey Beena Ji Rasika Dugal Golu Shweta Tripathihellip Yet Isha Talwar shows up as a young politician Madhuri Yadav in Season 2 with a quiet strut and damn you sit up and take noticeVikas Kumar ACP Khan Ankur Bhatia Sangram AaryaRam Madhvanis delightfully dark authentic adaptation of Dutch series Penoza on DisneyHotstar of course gave Sushmita Sen a new lease of life in a heavy part that she probably wasnt offered even at her peak Sikander Khers solid too But Im talking about discovering faces And well how do you replicate the swag coupled with vulnerability of the cop Vikas Kumar investigating a drugmurder case and the rich brat Ankur Bhatia navigating the law Blown totallyRiddhi Dogra Nusrat AsurOf course Asur on Voot Select is Arshad Warsis comeback in every way And a launchpad of sorts for young Barun Sobti Like with all the major Indian series the ensemble cast is killing it too Sometimes though I suspect its just about a presence on screen mdash the fact that theyre there not even doing or saying much but looking every bit in the moment Thats what viscerally draws you in towards them That was Riddhi Dogra as a midlevel CBI officer to me Just there