Abhishek Banerjee on 'Stolen': 'It's not a dark film, it's really entertaining, an action-packed thriller'

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2 days ago

In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, the actor spoke about his prep, the world he was thrown into, and exploring the different shades of his personalities with the choices he is making. read more
In the new film Stolen that's streaming on Prime Video, Abhishek Banerjee plays a callous brother who wishes to stay away from an issue that has cropped up as an infant has gone missing. He has no idea he will soon be sucked into a never-ending rigmarole that shall have a deep and traumatic impact on his being.
In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, the actor spoke about his prep, the world he was thrown into, and exploring the different shades of his personalities with the choices he is making.
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Edited excerpts from the interview
The film looks really intense. What was the prep like for you as an actor?
The film has been made with a lot sweat, blood, and guts. I know it's fake blood but you do end up getting hurt here and there. And of course you were sweating in Pushkar. And guts because they wanted us to do stuff we could have never imagined as actors. For car shots, I'm so used to using tubes and drone shots and everything. When they narrated the story to me, I was fully prepared that the action will be taken care of by the action guys. On the first day of shoot, they took us to a dune where I had to climb down with the car and I was freaked out.
I was like they cannot expect me to do something like this. This is not professional. And they were like no this is going to be the way we are going to shoot it. And they showed me how to do it. And I realized there was no way out. I cannot logically debate with them on this. I really had to take the driver's seat in the film and it needed guts. I am not somebody who is very confident with driving. I had a small but a terrible accident. I had to use all my senses to do this film. No amount of preparation could have prepared me for what was about to come.
Were you able to detach yourself from the anguish of your character after the shoot was over?
This question keeps popping up if you were able to detach yourself. A professional actor does not have to detach. They will just know what they are doing. Your homework is all done. There is no attachment after the shoot is over. You are just doing your job.
What's your take on the dark side of your personality that you are exploring with choices like Stolen, Vedaa, Paatal Lok, and Apurva?
I don't know why people are trying to relate this to my other intense roles. This is absolutely nothing like what I have done before. Because it is the same face, I do not have much intensity to show again and again. Maybe because of the beard people were thinking it's closer to those dark roles. We were shooting at night so that's why maybe people are calling it a dark film.
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It's an entertaining film. It's really entertaining. Paatal Lok is a slow burner of nine episodes. Apurva is a different world altogether. Vedaa is far away from dark. Dark reality of India? Yes. But far away from dark. Stolen is not a dark film. It's an action packed thriller. And that's exactly what you expect from the highways when something wrong happens.