Prosenjit Chatterjee On His OTT Debut In Prime Video’s Jubilee

Starting his career  as a child actor playing his real-life father matinee-idol Biswajeet Chatterjee’s screen-son in Duti Pata in 1983, Prosenjit has  carved a unique  place for himself in Bangla cinema  as  an actor of tremendous transformative abilities. As he now steps into  a new arena  and that  too in Hindi, Prosenjit  is  very excited  about Jubilee on  Amazon’s Prime Video as his maiden  move into the streaming platform.

Says  Prosenjit, “Even before the pandemic I had decided  to  spend  a lot of time in Mumbai exploring career options. The  OTT platform is a blessing for  actors  and technicians  from  all across India.The  OTT  has broken the  language  barrier. We no longer make just films in  Bengali, Marathi,Telugu, etc.  We  make Indian films.  I want too explore cinema in languages  other  than Bangla. I’ve done  Hindi  and  South  Indian films.When Rituparno Ghosh did Chokher Bali in 2003 it did so well all over  India back then.When Mr Mani Ratnam  did Roja  it became  a  pan-India  hit. These were  exceptions  back then. Now they have become  a habit.”

    When  Prosenjit  was  offered  Jubilee he  was  immediately bowled  over.  “If you remember the last  film I did in Hindi  was  with Dibakar Banerjee(Shanghai). That was such an enriching experience for me!During the  last few years I’ve worked with several new-age directors in Bangla who have projected me on screen in  new ways.When Vikramaditya Motwane  came to me  with  Jubilee I  was aware of his impressive work in the past. I was immediately interested.  Also, Vikramaditya said something to me that  clinched the  matter for me.”

 Apparently  Vikramaditya  Motwane  wrote Jubilee especially for Prosenjit.

 Concurs Proenjit, “He said they were writing Jubilee for almost five years, and that he had me in mind while writing  the character  of  Srikant Roy. I was  so touched. Vikramaditya had never met me. He may have seen some of my work,that’s it. Here was this young talented  director telling me he  had me in mind for a major role.It meant a lot to me.”

In Bangla  Prosenjit  is the undisputed . The actor doesn’t dispute  that. “But it is now time to explore  other avenues. This is where the OTT came in. The   OTT  is  an extremely important platform today.I’ve always  respected  every  platform.I’ve seen two of the country’s biggest star-actors  Mr Amitabh Bachchan and  Mr Soumitra  Chatterjee  accord the same  respect to cinema  and  television.  From them, I’ve learnt it  is  not the  size of the screen, but what  you do with it that matters.”

Prosenjit’s  work in films like Bikram Singha, Jatishwar   and Shob Charitro Kalponik define modern Bengali cinema . “That  maybe  so. But you can’t rest on your laurels. You have to move on , explore. That’s what I am doing with Jubilee. The script , treatment  era  and aura reminded me of one of my  favourite   films, Guru  Dutt’s Kagaz Ke Phool. I got the same vibes in Jubilee. You remember that shot of  Guru Dutt entering the studio  waving to fans? I was reminded  of that shot while doing Jubilee. I was deeply  honoured  to be part of a series that  in its own way,  pays  a tribute to all those  filmmakers who made Indian cinema what  it is.There are so many things about  our cinema that younger generations will learn  from watching  Jubilee. It goes back to the  roots of Indian cinema. The spoken words in  Jubilee have a poetic feel to it.I completely related to the  ambience and dialogues.Mine is  a very strong character.”

Prosenjit saw  no  difference in shooting a  feature film and  a web series. “The way Vikramaditya Motwane  has shot  Jubilee, it was far  more challenging than  a  feature  film. It is like  shooting  ten  feature films  at the same  time. The kind of   outdoor sets  depicting the past in film studios …I’ve shot in such studios in the past. Entering Motwane’s set  gave me goosebumps. It was  deja  vu.For me  it  was  like doing four films. Interestingly Prime  Video is releasing  it in two parts . The gap in-between would be like  that tradition interval in our films.”

There is  much curiosity to see what Prosenjit has  done in  Jubilee?  “I’ve done my best. Not just me, all the actors are brilliant.I  shared a wonderful rapport with all of them. It felt like I  had been working with them  for many years. The treated me like a  guardian, an elder brother.I really enjoyed working with the young team. I’ve so  much to learn  from them.When I see Nawaz giving  his performance,  or Ritwick Chakraborty  in Kolkata I feel, ‘Yaar mere se  toh yeh  nahin hoga’. There are young actors  doing things I had never  thought  of.They make me very very hungry as  an actor.”