Stree 2 actor Abhishek Banerjee slams trend of casting influencers over actors based on Instagram followers

Abhishek Banerjee is basking in the success of his latest release Stree 2. The actor, who also works as a casting director, talked about his career and early struggles in a new interview with Sucharita Tyagi on her YouTube channel, where he shared his opinion on the harsh reality of influencers being cast as actors based on her Instagram followers. (Also read: Stree 2 actor Abhishek Banerjee reveals he was offered 3 lead roles post film's success: I cannot do boring stuff)

What Abhishek said

During the conversation, Abhishek said, “This is a reality I face as both a casting director and an actor. I have faced it recently. We need to break this habit. The problem is not influencers becoming actors. If you can act, come from anywhere and act. The problem is when you are deciding on casting a particular actor depending on their followers. You’ve seen the audition, shortlisted three people out of the lot… then you say all are good but the second one is really good. But the third one has more followers, that’s a serious problem. It will trap us. By the time the industry will come to realize that this is wrong, it will be too late."

More details

He added, "One thumbnail will last how long? It will bait might attract viewers to the first episode, but no one will invest nine hours into a web show solely because someone has followers. How many are buying the ticket? Shah Rukh Khan has about 45 million followers and there are many who have more, but is there isn’t a bigger star than him? So these comparisons based on followers are rubbish.”

Abhishek said that as a casting director it is his job to cast actors, not see who is a popular actor or star. That is the job of the producer. So, if he had to cast someone, he would seek that person's merit based on their craft, and not even bother if they had social media.

Abhishek plays Janna in Stree 2, which also stars Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor and Pankaj Tripathi. A sequel to the 2018 film Stree, the horror-comedy film has been doing bumper business at the box office.