From Rana, the love-struck boy in Dil Dhadakne Do, to Shutu, the bullied protagonist in A Death in the Gunj and to the local goon Bablu Pandit in Mirzapur, Vikrant Massey’s rise to stardom has been stupendous. The 32-year-old has now bagged a film opposite Deepika Padukone besides his many other ongoing projects. The actor is quite active on social media and believes, “It is one platform that suits my personality. I find Twitter a little wild. Coming back to your question, I think it’s catch-22.
Unfortunately, we are today hiring actors who are popular on Instagram. It has happened in front of me that a few talented actors have been rejected work because they don’t have the Instagram following. There are so many people who are brought into a project just because they have a certain amount of Instagram following. I hope it is just a phase and it fades away with time. My primary job is that of an actor. If there is someone who believes in what I offer in front of the camera rather than how much following I have on Instagram, I would rather work with them.” Despite the ongoing burst of success, Vikrant remains grounded and says, “I might have added zeros to my bank balance and followers to my Instagram account but I still lead a middle-class lifestyle. Nothing has changed in my life and I love to connect with simple people and that’s where I find my characters.”
The onslaught of web series has especially put the spotlight on Vikrant. Apart from playing a gangster in Amazon Prime web series Mirzapur and a romantic with a troubled past in Alt Balaji’s Broken But Beautiful, he garnered acclaim for his role in Criminal Justice. About how his preparation for the character the actor says, “I mentally prepared for it a lot. When I got the script I started working on the character and charted out Aditya’s journey. How my character evolves to when he is convicted and how his life changes after being jailed. There is a definite arc to the character and a natural progression. I made sure I was emotionally agile to play the character.”
On working in the film industry Vikrant says, “The pressures of shooting take a toll on you. After a point, stagnancy takes over. If you have to keep creating the same the emotion in 10-12 different takes, it tends to get repetitive, and that’s where the mental agility comes into play. One has to manage to find something different every time the performance is repeated and deliver the act with a very little margin of error.”