Exclusive- Karanvir Malhotra on exploring horror genre with Andhera: "Were waiting for someone from India to take that leap"

Actor Karanvir Malhotra

Actor Karanvir Malhotra, who recently appeared in Amazon Prime Video’s web series Andhera, has also been part of notable OTT projects like Selection Day and Indian Police Force.

In an exclusive chat with Money Control, he opened up about his journey from selling film posters to starring in acclaimed series, and shared his experience working on Andhera.

Excerpts from the interview:

How was it for you to work on the show, especially with the stunning cast like, Prajakta Koli? And how was the entire experience for you? Can you share some anecdotes and, you know, something that stuck with you, while filming?

I'm so happy that the audience is connecting with my character and as well as the show because it dealt with very sensitive themes like mental health, depression, anxiety, but also it has a supernatural twist to it.

And having her on board as the as my co, actor and co lead was an absolutely amazing experience because she's so easy to work with. And, and luckily, you know, we developed a great friendship concept where we used to eat together. We used to read books together. So, honestly, that we used to deal stress together because it's a very stressful show in the sense because of, again, like, the theme that the show there's been to. First of all, it's horror, supernatural, again, depression.

So, these things can be really heavy as actors as well, you know, and you have to perform things like this. She was so amazing to work with. And in terms of anecdotes, when there are so many actors, we were shooting for almost fifty five days and, you know, we spent so much time together.

You know, we love cracking jokes. So a deep stretching factor so much so that, you know, we had a group, name called Hall of Lame where we just used to share very lame jokes and, you know, just a little stress.

And even when, you know, after hoot we just used to hang out, we used to grab one super joke or, you know, something else. You know, a lot of people never used to get those jokes as well except the three of us. But, then that became, a factor where we used to, just hang up with some feed, relax after a stressful day or something.

2. Tell us about your journey from being a poster boy to the poster boy of a film as you had mentioned in one of your social media posts with a sweet video.

It's actually very, magical in that sense because I never expected to see myself on a poster in the sense because even when the promotions of the show were about to be fixed, he had no idea how the post is gonna be like.

We did the post process and everything and, you know, so at that time, I didn't even know if there's gonna be any or anything like that. But then, of course, when you see yourself on such a big poster, you know, it is very overwhelming. It is, you know, a dream situation. So this journey started ten, eleven years back when I'm originally from Delhi. My family migrated to Melbourne and Australia.

And in Melbourne, I started working for, Indian festival of Melbourne. I was used to distributing a lot of things like, Hindi, things of course as well as regional things like Punjabi, Malayalam. Right. You know, films from all languages. So I used to be the poster boy where I used to I used to work in the office as well, but my names were supposed to put, Hindi posters across grocery store in Melbourne.

I used to put posters all around Melbourne and I used to get two tickets to the grocery store owners, and they used to get really happy. And then if it was like a nice soft place to give me some sweets, some aunties used to laugh because, they used to be like, what? That's when I realized that they go beyond just language and just the reason, and they really unite people. And that's when that drama being an actor started, you know, developing in my mind. I will do in theater in Melbourne as well.

And, and then I remember, having Melbourne as a big city, so I used to cover the entire region. So I used to put, like, poster in, like, 150 or 200 shops in three stories. So then I started auditioning. I auditioned for category ad from Melbourne. I was lucky enough that they called they you need to Bombay. I saw for that ad and went back. Then similarly for the first time I came to Bombay for my first feature film, which was a small independent film called what are the odds, that would be produced as in caravan. You know? Who did a daily time later? So, again, I tested from there.

The director, she really liked my ad. So I just came down from to Bombay to shoot that one thing, but then I started getting projects, you know, one after the other. I got selection day after that for Netflix.

3. What drew you to the script of Andhera?

I got a call for Andrea one time. I was eligible for an audition, and I showed up.

The casting directors were really keen to casting, but they I was like, you know, they need to add something to my look, in the sense that, you know, character is a little bit, you know, the the medical students. So, Navratan, and who were casting, they said, like why don't you test with specs on. So that's why I quickly went, grabbed my glasses and then tested, and then one thing led to the hardware and data happened.

So, yeah, it started well. I tried to cover it any few words, but I I hope you got the gist of it. Definitely. That that that covered a lot. So, also, since Andhera, explores, like, psychological twists and horror, fear, and all all of that, right, as as a genre.

4. As a newcomer, how did you feel about exploring the Horror genre apart from the usual romance and comedy genre?

So, when I first got shortlisted, you usually get two, three scenes to read and to test. So you get a little bit of an understanding as to what the tone of the script is like. For example, Gaurav's writing was very descriptive. There was a style of writing which tells you a lot about the character and how the characters speaks, what is the body language like. So all those things are mentioned in this. So I knew that somewhere at the back of my mind, I knew what they might be expecting from actors when they audition.

So he told me to watch that performance, and then Prasco, who's the director, told me to watch, Mr. Robot. The thing is that even as a character, there wasn't any reference points from India. If you think about it, there hasn't been any actor yet who's created depressed, patient, you know, on Indian OTT or Indian three weeks. So there wasn't any reference point for me. I'm sure, they must have been performances that actors have dealt into mentally helped, characters that have a mental health disorder.

They haven't exercised that character has depression or anxiety or PTSD. There wasn't any reference point to begin with. I literally had to, start from scratch and excel entertainment. You know, they were empathizing enough where they could me in touch with this, psychiatrist.

Also the one biggest thing was the games after I had been selected for the part, they were gracious enough to give me two, three episodes to read. It is going unheard of, to be honest. You know, creators and production houses, you know, they really like to hold scripts for a really long time until you start shooting because, you know, they are very protective about, you know, an actor going out to the media or telling what the story is. But they were very they trusted me enough for me.

I would require, time with the script, with the character to read it. So, you know, that gave me ample time to read the script three times to understand the story, you know, what the character wants. And then, you know, then we did reading the project. So slowly, slowly, once you start building the phone on the character or the character, then you give the character a certain walk again because he's so flustered with everything that's going around him.

5. As a newcomer, how did you feel about exploring the Horror genre apart from the usual romance and comedy genre?

There are so many other supernatural killers that have done so well internationally. So I was just thinking that yet. Because even our VFX is so good. There are a lot of genres. They're supernatural. They've got a there is a comic book. Maybe, we have these changes to start with.

6. With the advent of OTT do you feel there are more meatier opportunities for actors?

I remember I'm an OTT child. In 02/2017, when I didn't remember, like, that was like, that's the first year when, stranger people. Like the show Sacred Games. Sacred Games came out. I think it was 2016 or 02/2017. So it was literally, like, when I kept my first foot on Bombay was a time where literally this OTT has had just begun.

And then selection day might have to be the second project to come, which I was a part of after. So, I've seen like, I've experienced this OTT literally in front of my own eyes. And, you know, from one platform or two platforms, I remember only Amazon Prime and Netflix were the, two platforms that you know, then I saw, like, five, six more platforms coming out of my own eye. So it's weird that, you know, there is a lot of opportunity, but as an actress, you need to, you know, if you also have to preserve yourself to see, you know, to not just always go where the window is. You know, you need to go back to the roots, because I've, you know, come from theater to go back to where we can just see what is the tune.

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And I will continue doing so because I genuinely believe that, you know, good stories, should be told regardless, of whether, you know, how much they work or, you know, how violent they'll go. Because that's the only way to keep your clarity and sanctity. That's at least what I believe in. So even in OTT, I think you can create your own set of repertoire of work that you want people to associate you with.