TV actor Praneet Bhat, who will next be seen in upcoming historical drama TV show Porus as Persian king Darius, feels TV and web-series are the best platform to narrate history with a better insight as films have a time constraint.
“To get an understanding of an era, characters, socio-political situation, we need insight, we need details. In a film, we tell a story in three hours, in TV series, we have more time to elaborate. Since historical story needs elaboration, I think history is best told in series, not through a movie,” Praneet said.
“People tried to tell the story of Mahabharata through movies, but couldn’t succeed. Ramayana and Mahabharata are successful in series (on TV); because these are complete stories of the world, it should be told in series and in detail.
“The reach of television is not smaller in any way (than films). The reach is higher as every household has at least one TV set. So, the reach is incomparable,” he added.
Praneet had to put on a Persian accent to bring authenticity to his role.
“Accent is one of the elements in language that defines the region. When we started shooting and I uttered dialogues in Hindi, somehow Siddharth (producer Siddharth Kumar Tewary) didn’t like it. And he was quite logical about it, as his question was how could a Persian speak in proper Hindi? Then I tried a thick Persian accent in Hindi with a few Persian words and that clicked.”
“So, in the show, Darius, his daughter Barsine, his work companion Mausius everybody speaks in the same accent,” he said.
Besides Praneet, the Sony Entertainment Television show will also feature Laksh Lalwani, Rohit Purohit, Rati Pandey and Aditya Redij.