Divyenndu says OTT once promised creative freedom but is now driven by self-censorship and fear. Urging creators to take risks, he praises Mirzapur’s makers for boldly backing scale and story over star power with its big-screen leap
Divyenndu
Divyenndu has firmly established himself in the OTT world with offerings ranging from Mirzapur to The Railway Men (2023) and Agni (2024). But in the past few years, he has also noticed a change in its ecosystem. The actor, whose Saali Mohabbat premièred on Zee5 over the weekend, says that the web world once promised creative freedom, but is now increasingly practising self-censorship. He shares, “Whatever you’re writing, producing, or making, there’s always a legal team with whom you’re constantly cross-checking. Obviously, to be on the safer side, they’re always saying, ‘Cut this, remove that.’ At some point, you start questioning why this is happening.”
The actor rues that the industry has forgotten how to take creative risks. Urging filmmakers and artistes to be more fearless, he says, “Even today, the majority of our films don’t work at the box office. So, just be more fearless, more open [to new ideas].”
According to Divyenndu, that fearlessness is reflected by Mirzapur’s makers, who decided to take the popular series to the big screen with Mirzapur: The Film. Not just that, they did so without chasing star power, instead retaining the original cast that comprises Pankaj Tripathi, Ali Fazal, Rasika Dugal, Shweta Tripathi, and him, among others. “It [translating series into films] has been done before in the West. For a series like Mirzapur, the kind of scale we have, the world we’ve created, it justifies landing on the big screen. There is already a certain fan base, and the canvas is big enough. If this works, a lot of people will want to translate series into films,” he reflects.
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