It's tougher to just do a voiceover than play a character, says Ajay Devgn on Lalbazaar

The trailer of the bilingual web-series Lalbazaar is making heads turn, specially due to actor Ajay Devgn’s sharp narration. The show is about a group of cops, headed by Sabyasachi Chakraborty and Kaushik Sen, who are trying to solve a series of murders that have rocked Kolkata.

During the show’s online trailer launch, Devgn spoke about why he agreed to become a narrator. “Firstly, the long association with Zee. Secondly, I saw the trailer. They asked me to be a part of it and I loved the trailer. Very gritty and real. Also because it’s a cop drama. I have done a lot of cop dramas. So I do understand what is real and what is not. It looked very real and interesting,” he said.

 Devgn said that after playing a cop so many times, he has been able to understand things through their perspective. "People talk about cops and their line of duty,” said the actor. “But their backgrounds, pressures, personal family dramas, political issues and political pressures are things people don’t know. When I did films like Gangaajal (2003) and Singham (2011), I learnt a lot about them.” 

The actor also claimed that it was tougher to just do a voiceover than play an actual character. “It [doing only a voiceover] is more difficult, I would say. When you are acting, you have understood the character and you are playing the character or you have played the character. You have gone through scripts and there are enough things to prepare mentally. But when you are just giving your voice, you have not played the character. So it takes little time to adjust to the tone and what note to catch,” he explains.

Directed by Sayantan Ghosal, Lalbazaar will stream on Zee5 from 19 June.