Suvrat Joshi’s Marathi web-series Jobless went live on Planet Marathi on 31 August. Directed by Niranjan Patki, the show is a crime thriller that stars Pushkar Shrotri, Mayuri Wagh, Swapnali Patil and Harish Dudhade.
In a chat, Joshi told Cinestaan that when the show's writer Amit Baiche narrated the story to him, he was instantly hooked. “The story is so powerful that even when a calm, quiet and shy person like him started narrating it, I was glued to my seat,” he said.
“He narrated it for around an hour and 40 minutes. He also narrated the story of season two for thirty minutes. At the time, I didn’t even know which character I would be playing. I was so blown away by the story that I just wanted to be a part of it," Joshi added.
Another factor that made him eager to do the show was its genre. “I personally like the thriller genre, especially the works of Alfred Hitchcock and the Coen brothers from the West and Sriram Raghavan in India. So I was happy that I got to do my first thriller,” he said.
The show sees Joshi play Viraj Pathak, a middle-class working professional who loses his job after he gets involved in a financial scam. He later finds an unusual method to make a quick buck.
“We generally see twisted people, the mafia or politicians in thrillers; people who are already corrupt and greedy,” said Joshi. “But here you see a layman. He is like a simple common man. His character is such that 99% of Indian men would be able to relate with him. He has a wife and daughter whom he loves a lot," the actor said.
Joshi refrained from revealing anything more as he wants people to discover things for themselves by watching the show. “You can see from the trailer that he either gets involved or framed in a scam or he has committed it. Maybe he might turn to a grey person later or maybe even darker,” said Joshi.
The actor faced some issues as he had to have a beard for his character in Jobless and needed to be clean-shaven for another Hindi show he was doing then. “And I didn’t want to lose any of the two shows,” he said. “There was a big question on what to do about my beard. So I asked a make-up man to create a fake beard. I showed the photos to the director. I attended the Filmfare Awards this year just to show Pushkar [Shrotri] dada the photographs. It all went well.”
Asked about the challenges he faced, Joshi said, "The challenging part was that he is a common man. The show is about what does a person do in a desperate situation. People should feel even they might have to do this in the future. But even after he does that, he appears innocent to us. That was the biggest challenge."
Joshi gives credit to director Patki for getting the character right. Although this is his first web show, he has experience working in TV serials. “Because of his experience, he was very clear about what he wanted to do and how. This clarity ensured that he could focus on our performances. Mayuri, Harish and Swapnali have already worked with Niranjan sir. He used to tell me what exactly I should do in a scene and then he used to allow me to play with it,” he said.
Despite Jobless being his maiden web-series, Joshi didn’t find it any different frpm shooting for a movie. “Web is also like films. When we are shooting, we don’t think about episodes. We think about it as a two or three-hour-long story. So, the running time is just half an hour more than a feature film,” he said.
Joshi is also known for his work in TV serials such as Dil Dosti Duniyadaari. The actor does not see a big difference between working in films and TV. “For TV, you only know that you have to shoot for that particular episode. There is no character graph as such. And you don’t know where will the story head after a week [laughs],” he said.
Joshi said the makers of Jobless are sure about its success and, hence, they have planned the second season. "You see a lot of aspects about Viraj Pathak and his graph in the first season. But still, at the end of the season, I am sure you will feel like watching something more about him. So, as an actor, I have not revealed all my cards and the same is with every character. People will eagerly wait for those eight months for season two,” he said.