I haven’t imitated Uttam babu but I have tried to follow him: Raj Bhattacharyya

Legendary actor Uttam Kumar is widely regarded as the greatest actor of Bengali films and getting an opportunity to play a role which was played by him is a dream of many actors!

The actor who recently got this golden opportunity is Raj Bhattacharyya.

We have already reported about Ananda Ashram, the new story for Aakash Aath’s Ek Masher Golpo, which is based on a novel by Shailajananda Mukhopadhyay. And earlier a film was also made on the novel which starred legends Ashok Kumar, Uttam Kumar and Sharmila Tagore in lead roles.

So, Raj, who was earlier seen in Bengali dailies like Deep Jwele Jaai, Aanchol and Hoyto Tomari Jonno, is playing the role in the series which was played by Uttam Kumar in the film.

In a conversation with Tellychakkar.com, he said, “I have seen the film many times. This is a favourite film of mine. I haven’t imitated Uttam babu but I have tried to follow him. He inspires me a lot. So, while doing this character I might have got influenced by him in some of the scenes.”

He continued, “Both the film and the serial are based on the same story of ‘doctor’. The film was made by maintaining the time period of a film but the soap will be aired for 26 days. Many things were not shown in the film which will be shown in the soap. The soap has emphasized on all the three generations. Love too plays an important part here because it’s the thread that binds the entire story.  For not having copy right, a few new songs have been added to the story as well.”

To prepare for the role, did he take any reference from the film or the novel? Raj replied, “I haven’t taken any reference as such. My character has varied shades. In the story three time period have been shown in a balanced way and thus I have three looks. With the help of the script, I have tried to enact the scenes in different ways. So, that was my practice you can say.”

Talking about the challenges of playing the role, he said, “Shooting began with the look of an aged person and it required me act like a drunken man. Enacting the scene was a bit difficult since it was my first work with Debi da (Debidas Bhattacharya, director of the soap) and it took us some time to match each other’s tuning.”

“There are lots of emotional scenes… Actually, the character has so many shades that after playing the role, I am feeling so enriched. I have played variety of roles before but this one was quite challenging and I consider myself lucky for bagging the opportunity,” he added with a feel of satisfaction.

When asked to share his experience of working with Debidas, he said, “With immense work experience, Debidas Bhattacharya is one of the leading directors in the television industry. This was my first project with him. In the beginning, there was some communication problem but from the next day onwards, everything was smooth. And on the set, I like to have fun so before beginning the shoot Debida used to say ‘Yo Yo Action’…I loved working with him.”

The actor recently went for a holiday.

Commenting on the same, he said, “I made the trip to North Bengal in between shooting schedule. Actually, it was a pre-planned trip and the production team knew about it. I had to halt my shooting for a few days, thanks to the team who co-operated me a lot.”  

Keep up the good work, Raj!

Aakash Aath’s Ek Masher Golpo is aired every Monday to Saturday at 7 pm.