04 September,2024 09:04 PM IST | Mumbai | mid-day online correspondent
Nawazuddin Siddiqui Pic/Instagram
Bollywood's seasoned actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui needs no introduction. He can transform himself into any character and has earned a special place in the audience's hearts with his work. His character Ganesh Gaitonde from 'Sacred Games' became extremely popular after India opened its doors to OTT. Nawazuddin, who hasn't delivered a hit project since the series shut down after its second season, dissects what went wrong.
In a conversation with ANI, he admitted liking the first season over the second and revealed that the latter was not as successful as its predecessor because it did not connect with the audience. He explained, "There were new characters, so it didn't work. There were 3-4 new characters so it didn't work at all. Because what happens is that, the character that people loved at first, if you make them weak, people won't accept it."
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He further added that the audience is connected with certain characters and if they are missing or portrayed weakly, people often lose interest.
Giving an example of his favourite American crime drama series, 'Narcos', which was based on the story of a Colombian narcoterrorist Pablo Escobar, portrayed by Wagner Moura, he said, "When I saw the gangster series 'Narcos', and Pablo Escobar's character, I just went crazy after watching the first season. However, in the second season, his character was made weak. Then, why should I watch it? I had a connection with him. I was emotionally connected to him. The same happened with 'Sacred of Games 2'."
Talking about his iconic character of Ganesh Gaitonde and the famous dialogue 'Kabhi Kabhi lagta hai ki apun hi Bhagwan hai', on which several memes were made, he shared, "I used to wonder about this dialogue. I found it to be strange. Never knew at that time it would turn out to be like this (popular)."
'Sacred Games' is an Indian neo-noir crime drama based on Vikram Chandra's 2006 novel of the same name. It revolves around Sartaj (Saif Ali Khan), a cop, and his run-in with Gaitonde (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), the most wanted criminal, and what transpires after they come in contact with each other. Apart from Saif and Nawazuddin, the other cast includes Radhika Apte, Girish Kulkarni, Neeraj Kabi, Jeetendra Joshi, Rajshri Deshpande, Karan Wahi, Sukhmani Sadana, Aamir Bashir, Jatin Sarna, Elnaaz Norouzi, Pankaj Tripathi, Kubbra Sait, Surveen Chawla, Kalki Koechlin, Ranvir Shorey and Amruta Subhash.