Vikrant Massey’s life is not the same as it was last year, and the actor is acutely aware of this. In August, the 31-year-old multi-hyphenate (he has worked as a dancer, choreographer and as a television and film actor) joked in an interview about how he now has a publicist, a manager and a professionally-shot portfolio.
His earnest portrayal of Bablu Pandit in Amazon Prime’s grungy drama series Mirzapur — which released this month — has already won him admiring reviews (he likes hearing from critics but is mostly chuffed about the audience feedback). On Tuesday, he will be seen in a very different avatar — as Veer, the ambitious investment banker who works 15-hour days — in Broken but Beautiful, an “out and out love” series produced by ALTBalaji, Ekta Kapoor’s video on demand platform.
I ask him whether it has been a busy month. “Sort of,” he responds, self-effacingly. He is discernibly excited when I opine that his character’s transformation in Mirzapur (from high-waisted pants and tennis shoe-wearing nerd to gun-wielding, intimidating gangster) is very credible. He is affable and earnest, switching comfortably between English and Hindi.
In ‘Mirzapur’, Amazon Prime’s original series released this month, Massey’s character transforms from a high-waisted pants and tennis shoe-wearing nerd to gun-wielding, intimidating gangster | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Reasons to love
“I am really glad that I did both these shows, which are worlds apart,” he says. “I am really enjoying the post-release discussions for Mirzapur, and am really, really nervous and have butterflies in my stomach with regards to Broken.”
“The way to mend a broken heart is from the pieces of another one,” is a quote from the trailer of Broken but Beautiful (released on Sunday, it has already amassed over two million views on YouTube). And for Massey’s character, Veer — “he is like any other millennial: very ambitious, but there’s nothing extraordinary about his life” — that transformation happens when he encounters Sameera (played by Harleen Sethi).
With recent Bollywood hits under his belt like A Death in the Gunj, Half Girlfriend and Lipstick Under My Burkha, Massey explains that Broken was largely prompted by his relationship with Ekta Kapoor, one of Hindi cinema and television’s most prolific producers. “She has been very instrumental in my life,” explains the actor. “This is my fourth outing with her, and she told me one evening, ‘Vikrant, I have something just for you. This is something which I have been wanting to make for a while, and I think now is the right time.’” Massey agreed because he shared her vision of wanting to introduce a new kind of love story to Indian audiences, one about “celebrating our losses” and healing from past relationships.
“I’ve never done something like this,” he says gleefully. “Never played a central part in any romantic narrative or romanced anyone on screen.”
Content is king
When Massey started off in Hindi television — that world of colourful soap operas and over the top plot lines — over 10 years ago, he had been hoping for a break in cinema. He was, after all, from Mumbai, a Versova boy who had grown up with Bollywood around him. “When I realised that TV would be my playground, I decided to be content with what I had. I gave it my all,” he recalls.
A break came when Vikramaditya Motwane cast him in his 2013 Ranveer Singh-starrer Lootera, but it was not until last year that he became a well-recognised name in Bollywood. And now, he joins actors like Radhika Apte and Kalki Koechlin in shedding the burden of ‘medium’. Today, his journey has brought him back to the world of television series, but in a very different format. “The medium really doesn’t matter,” he insists. “People have started consuming very privatised content. Initially it used to be community viewing, at the cinema, where you look forward to ice cream in the interval; and then on to your dressing and dining rooms. Today, it’s gotten so privatised that you’re watching things on your mobile phone. That is a massive amount of change. I want to be a part of good narratives, and I want [audiences] to feel like they spent their time and money on the right thing.”
With four feature films slated for next year (including Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare with Alankrita Shrivastava, the director of Lipstick Under my Burkha), Massey will continue his experimental streak. He will be seen in Criminal Justice, the official web series adaptation of the eponymous television show by the BBC.
All 11 episodes of Broken but Beautiful will stream on AltBalaji on November 27