India's Prosenjit Chatterjee on Overcoming His Hero Image With ‘Shesh Pata' Role: ‘It Was a Huge Task' (EXCLUSIVE)

India’s Prosenjit Chatterjee on Overcoming His Hero Image With ‘Shesh Pata’ Role: ‘It Was a Huge Task’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Indian actor Prosenjit Chatterjee is a veteran of more than 250 films, but his most recent endeavor “Shesh Pata” is one of the special ones.

Chatterjee is a superstar in the eastern Indian Bengali-language film industry and a sought-after actor in the Hindi-language Bollywood industry as well. He scored global hits in 2023 with his pivotal roles in Prime Video series “Jubilee” and Netflix series “Scoop.” The same year, he starred in Bengali blockbuster “Dasham Avatar.”

For “Shesh Pata,” Chatterjee reunited with director Atanu Ghosh, with whom he’d done successful films “Mayurakshi” (2017) and “Robibaar” (2019). In “Shesh Pata,” Chatterjee plays Balmiki, an arrogant non-conformist fiction writer whose best days are behind him.  A publisher commissions him to write a book about his murdered actress wife, but Balmiki, who is sunk in a morass of tobacco and alcohol, does not deliver. The publisher engages a debt recovery agent to get the writing out of Balmiki.

“Normally actors like us, a so-called hero with a huge image, normally don’t get this kind of a character, this kind of challenging role with a lot of layers. And it was a difficult character, honestly speaking,” Chatterjee told Variety. “I love to do something also for the international audience, and some work which is going to stay for a long time.”

The actor adds that with him leading the cast, the project becomes commercially viable for producers. “All the films can’t be big box office hits, but people will talk about the cinema,” Chatterjee said.

After a modest theatrical run, “Shesh Pata” found a new audience in South Asia-focused streamer ZEE5 Global, where it is one of the most-watched films on the service. “People are talking about ‘Shesh Pata’ not just nationally but internationally,” Chatterjee said.

One of Chatterjee’s and India’s acting icons is the late thespian Soumitra Chatterjee (no relation to Prosenjit), who was the actor Oscar-winning Indian auteur Satyajit Ray worked the most with. Prosenjit Chatterjee has worked with Soumitra Chatterjee in several films, including “Mayurakshi.”

“It was a big challenge for me. I’ve dedicated my everything to Soumitra Chatterjee to do this particular Balmiki character,” Chatterjee said. “We are students of cinema and they were the masters.”

“You can see the psyche of the Balmiki character, he is playing with his death entirely. He’s not fighting against death, he’s enjoying the death,” Chatterjee said. “Before I started the shoot, I had changed my body, I really wanted people who see me to say, ‘This man is not going to live.’ And all of us who have been working for years, we have our own pattern, we have our own style. So I had to really take myself away from Prosenjit Chatterjee and become Balmiki. It was a huge task.”

Chatterjee is currently working on “Devi Chowdhurani: Bandit Queen of Bengal,” one of the highest budgeted films in the history of Bengali-language cinema. His next release, “Ajogya,” which bows June 7, is his 50th film alongside Rituparna Sengupta.

“Shesh Pata” is streaming now on ZEE5 Global.

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