EXCLUSIVE: Aamir Ali opens up about his struggle to find work on OTT: I felt nobody was trusting me as an actor, they saw me as the TV star

Actor Aamir Ali started his acting career with TV shows and turned out to be one of the most popular actors in the industry. Though being a mainstream hero in TV shows, Aamir is now proving his worth as an actor by doing OTT shows. He has recently impressed everyone with his performance in Kajol starrer The Trial show. But it wasn’t an easy path for Aamir to bag shows on OTT. Speaking about the same on Bollywood Bubble, Aamir spoke about how his TV image came as a barrier.

Aamir Ali on quitting TV and people’s perception of him as TV actor

The Navrangi Re actor exclusively told us, “I think when I started meeting people for OTT, so in 2017 approximately, I stopped doing TV. But when I started meeting people in 2018, I got good responses from people. But nothing was getting converted into work. They used to call me back and say that ‘We want to work with you. But I will let know if there are any herolike roles.’ But OTT is not about herolike roles, it’s about characters.”

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He continued, “However, I think everyone had a strong perception of me as a TV actor that no one could see me beyond that. They have seen me for 11 years every day. In fact, after leaving TV for 2-3 years, people used to tell me ‘I have seen you on TV’. I’m like ‘I have not done any shows for 2-3 years, which TV show you have seen me?’ I think the impact is imprinted on people’s minds and it took time to break the TV image.“

Aamir speaks about getting OTT opportunities

With this struggle, The Bhaskar Bharti actor was asked if he regrets doing TV or should have done fewer TV shows. He said, “No, whatever I am because of television and I’ve always liked to do quality work. You pick any TV show, the work will be quality work and I don’t regret anything. Whatever I am, whatever security I have, the feeling that ‘I’ll do go work only’ security came from TV. If I hadn’t earned money back then, now I would have done any roles. So at least, television gave me an opportunity to wait and look for better work. That’s why I waited for people like Hansal Mehta, Suparn Varma, Siddharth Malhotra. I’m doing work with these people because I could wait.”

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Aamir on his struggles with OTT

Aamir further added, “I have to prove, people used to meet me and they used to say ‘very good’. But nobody was giving me that kind of OTT shows. I wanted to do where I want to play a very interesting, very important character where I can show myself as an actor. I was a TV star, I climbed that mountain and I know where I stand. But OTT was a fresh mountain nobody was trusting me as an actor I felt. They were trusting me as Aamir Ali the TV star.“

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Aamir Ali has also worked with Hansal Mehta in Faraaz.

Watch the full interview here

Also read: EXCLUSIVE: Aamir Ali reveals what helped him deal with the negativity around divorce with Sanjeeda Shaikh