Jaideep Ahlawat is Paatal Lok’s protagonist and its star. But things were not the same till a few years ago. In Raazi, he played the supporting role of an intelligence agent working against Pakistan. Even though Raazi was a commercial hit, Jaideep did not get any work after that.
At the recent roundtable discussion with The Hollywood Reporter India, Jaideep opened up about that phase of his career when he stopped getting work even after his critically acclaimed performance in Raazi.
“A time comes when you need to do something and you get a good role. It gets out with people liking it but you still don’t have work. After Raazi, I didn’t have work. And you are like, ‘what went wrong?’ Everybody is praising it. Everybody is talking about the role,” he remarked.
“The scripts that were coming my way were almost the same. Everybody wants me to play an IB (Intelligence Bureau) officer and RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) officer, but I didn’t want to do that. I had just done it,” he continued.
Not just Raazi, he faced a similar problem after Paatal Lok too, in terms of the scripts he was getting.
“Like after Paatal Lok, I got hundreds of scripts of cop. Heights were like (when people told me) ‘sir, it’s a mixture of Paatal Lok and Mirzapur.’ (I was like) ‘What? Yeh kya hai? (What is this?)’ But then everybody wants that thing,” he stated.
The actor then shared his learning from this dry phase in his career.
“The biggest learning is working on yourself. Don’t be desperate about things. But think rightly. Sometimes you are in a bubble that ‘Oh! I am working so hard and doing everything…’ No, you are not! I don’t know if I am making any sense or not?!” he said.
Jaideep Ahlawat is currently gearing up for Paatal Lok season 2, which will stream on Prime Video on January 17. In the second season, with a new story, we will see a new side of Inspector Hathiram Chaudhary.
