Actor Mayur More On His Latest Series, Discovering Kota, The Decline Of OTT And More

Even though Kota Factory (2019), about the famous hub for coaching centres, was shot in black and white, it gave colour to the stories of the students studying for the IIT exams there. What it also did was give Mayur More a career-defining role. Mayur played the role of a 16-year-old who had come to the city. Now, he’s back with Black, White & Gray – Love Kills on Sony LIV. The mockumentary true crime series has him once again in the lead role, with an interesting cast comprising Tigmanshu Dhulia, Deven Bhojani, and others. While The Free Press Journal asked Mayur about the series and Kota Factory, we also prodded him about some other very interesting projects he has been part of during his cinematic journey. Excerpts:

Q. How did you get selected for Black, White & Gray – Love Kills?

A. Honestly, I didn’t select the series; I think the series selected me. I had around four rounds of auditions. Initially, my shooting timeline wasn’t matching with theirs, but luckily it all worked out in the end.

Q. The trailer touched upon relationships nowadays. Do you think, with a new relationship term coming out every week, this current generation is quite confused? Or do they know exactly what they want?

A. Yes, even I think that the current generation is not confused, but any new trend is termed too fast—for example, what happens on social media. It’s become very easy to judge everyone and comment whatever you feel like. This is a dangerous trend, especially for women. The kind of comments they receive is very brutal, and we don’t understand what impact it can have on the other person.

Q. Any anecdotes or learnings you can share as takeaways from Deven Bhojani and Tigmanshu Dhulia? Or anyone else from the show too?

A. With Deven sir, I had not shot a lot, but I was very excited to see him as I had seen him in Office Office when I was a kid. With Tigmanshu sir, it was great that I was working with someone who had worked with Irrfan Khan (Paan Singh Tomar), as I could not ever meet Irrfan sir. Also, when I had seen Bandit Queen, I was amazed that even in India we can make such biopics. Tigmanshu sir also told me why such biopics cannot be made very often in India—but that answer I can’t share with you!

Q. You’ve also been part of various other interestingly named projects like Slum Golf, Dadugiri, and others. Any particular one you feel should have got more attention than it did?

A. I think Slum Golf, because I had not seen anything related to golf till then. But when I came to know certain facts about the real-life story—like how in Chembur, Mumbai, there is a community that plays golf using makeshift equipment and the streets and alleys as their golf course—it was intriguing. They could not play the game in its actual form since it was too expensive for them, so they created their own version.

Q. Was there anything about life in Kota that you discovered while shooting the series which you weren’t aware of before?

A. When I was shooting in Kota, I would just see kids and their tuitions all over, and it seemed like a dead city to me. But after the first season, when I went back, I had made some friends, and I also discovered the wildlife of Kota, especially the Chambal belt. Kota’s landscape is vast and beautiful. I love spending time in the jungles and caves there, amidst the wildlife.

Q. What’s your view on the current OTT shows on various platforms—great or not so much?

A. When OTT started, I was really excited because, as the youth, we were desperate for good content. Even the TV shows that I had liked were way before my time, like Malgudi Days. I was never interested in the Saas-Bahu shows or the various strategies that the devar and devarani use in their home politics. After OTT, I was hopeful that we would get some innovative content. In the beginning, it was great, but more recently, there is a new phenomenon called TV+, and some call it OTT- which is neither TV nor OTT; it's something in between. The scripting for these shows is not given enough time, because of which quality suffers.

news