Rohan Mehra: On TV, if you look good you only get to play a rich boy
Actor Rohan Mehra has always had a good boy image on television, and he has been trying to break the image with his last few roles. He played a casanova in the web series “Class Of 2020” and is currently playing a driver with conflicts in his life in the web series “Crashh”.
“On TV, the way you look will decide the kind of roles that you will get. If you look good, you will get a rich boy or college stud type of role. But when I saw the film ‘Lagaan’, I felt that Aamir Khan doesn’t look poor but his acting in the film convinced everyone. So if your look doesn’t convince the audience, your acting should. On TV you don’t have time to prepare well and they (makers) don’t trust you also to do a role which is different from what you have played before. They feel if you look a certain way, you can play just that,” he tells IANS.
The actor adds typecasting doesn’t happen on the web. “This kind of typecasting doesn’t happen on the web. Both the shows that I have been part of are completely different. On the web, your acting is seen. You have time to prepare for your role. Plus, there are a lot of episodes and you have enough time to showcase your acting abilities,” he says.
He adds: “I had a good boy image after my show Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai. Even after Bigg Boss, the same image stayed. I was getting only good boy roles after that. I always wanted to do something different and that’s why I took a break. I changed my look and worked on my body. And then I got a chance to do something different. In the series Class of 2020, my character was a casanova. And my role in Crashh is very different. The dialect in which I talk is also different and so is my look.”
Talking about his new series “Crashh”, Rohan says: “This is a very clean story with a unique concept. It is very different and we haven’t seen such a story for a while now. It is about four siblings who get separated during childhood. The character was amazing. He is like this gully boy and stays in a chawl. He is poor and needs to start driving to make a living. There are conflicts in his life — his family is forcing him to get married and he wants to b a dancer,” he says.
“Crashh” is currently streaming on ALTBalaji and ZEE5.