Exclusive| Sidhant Gupta responds to the allegations of glorification of Charles Sobhraj in Black Warrant: I saw it as…
Sidhant Gupta opens up on reception to Black Warrant while reacting to allegations of glorification of Charles Sobhraj in the show, and the pace of his career
Director Vikramaditya Motwane’s Black Warrant has received praise from all over and actor Sidhant Gupta, who plays French serial killer Charles Sobhraj in the show, calls it a “a nice little ego boost that you are doing something right and it’s working.” Sidhant Gupta adds, “It's gratifying and a fuel for an artist when the love that comes is real. It drives you to do more. I'm thankful that the audience give me so much love every time.”
However, a section of the audience has seen the portrayal of Charles as a glorification of the killer. Addressing that, Sidhant says, “If he’d have done the right thing, people would have called him a genius. But because he has done wrong things, we call him a mastermind, a term well suited for criminals. At the end of the day, he had a gifted mind. And for me, I saw it that I was getting a chance to play the greatest actor. In real life, that’s all he is doing as that’s where he gets his kick, by fooling everyone across Europe and Asia.”
He adds, “You need to keep hate, crime and all that there is alive through stories and stories itself. It's very important. There's a reason that people like criminal thrillers, murders and action. It's the most important thing to just do whatever is needed to keep all of this alive through stories. We all like watching it as it's where you get the release from.” The actor insists that he was amused by Charles’ story when he heard it: “How does he think all this? How is it all possible? Call him conman, call him magician, he is an enigma.”
Even though his last three projects—Black Warrant, Freedom At Midnight and Jubilee—have brought him appreciation, Sidhant has taken his sweet time between them all, and he is happy about it. “I didn't choose the usual route of doing films after films, just for the sake of doing it and because I'm getting them. I am patient that way. I like that I'm choosing to move from one life to another at my own pace and getting great characters that need no introduction in the world. I am just choosing and deciding for my sake and for my own self,” he says.
The actor adds that he feels the need to keep himself away from the peripherals of the glamour industry and be meticulous about his choices. “Otherwise, I will come on the set and do the same thing over and over. Eventually, I'll get bored of myself and people will also get bored of me. But still, they’d be like ‘okay, he is a hero’, and I will get attached to that hero image and will keep giving them the ‘hero’ rather than giving them the character. So, I'm just holding back on the other side,” he says, adding that he has learnt to deal with the waiting game. “I do want to see myself doing more work, but I keep waiting for the right script. And those are coming more from the web medium because they are less worried about the business aspect of it. It's more about saying something there, so you see a lot more individual voices in creators, directors, and even actors in the web space than films,” he ends.
