Harsh Varrdhan Kapoor: Had Bhavesh Joshi been an OTT original film, things would have been different

Actor Harsh Varrdhan Kapoor is grateful to OTT platforms. He might have started his career the filmy way with Mirzya (2016), which didn’t make much buzz, but all his subsequent work- Bhavesh Joshi Superhero (2018), a cameo in his father Anil Kapoor’s web film AK vs AK (2020), and most recently, Ray, only got appreciation because of the web platform. He says if Bhavesh Joshi Superhero was an OTT original, “things would have been different”.

He agrees that the focus, before Covid-19 changed things, was only on how much a film earned at the box office. “I remember Bhavesh Joshi released, and sank without a trace three years ago in cinemas. Now it is like a cult film. Then, I was still stuck in a situation where I was a young actor, starting my career, very excited and naive, idealistic about doing these offbeat films. We would market our films through music, promote them on music channels, do city tours, release it on a certain number of screens,” recalls the 30-year-old.

The actor goes on to add that all this went against his film Bhavesh Joshi. “A film like that could never thrive under those circumstances. Everybody wrote it off when it released,” Kapoor says. But after it released on an OTT platform, it gained a new lease of life and fetched him a new set of audience.

“It goes on to show the longevity of films being on these platforms. What is beautiful is that so many people who had not seen my work, saw my cameo in AK vs AK, then went to watch Bhavesh… and then Ray. These films will always be there on those platforms. That is the beautiful thing, we have evolved so much in the way we market things,” says Kapoor.