'Gullak' actor Jameel Khan says he is keen to play a negative role

Mumbai: Actor Jameel Khan, who plays the family patriarch of the Mishra family in "Gullak", hopes that his popular performance does not stereotype into playing father roles.

Khan most recently earned praise for his portrayal of APJ Abdul Kalam in Rajkummar Rao-starrer biopic "Srikanth". He is now keen to explore characters that are different from Santosh Mishra of "Gullak". "I would like to play any role, small, big, or medium, whatever gives me creative satisfaction and has a lot of meat or shades, and is not unidimensional. That’s my wish, and one will get to see me play such characters in my future projects,” Khan told PTI in an interview.

"I hope I don’t get to play the role of a father like in ‘Gullak’. I like to break the stereotype. I want to play challenging roles, be it negative or positive, young or old, I’m game for it, bring it on,” the actor said.

Khan has some shows lined up on different OTT platforms like Prime Video, Jio and SonyLIV, which is also the home for "Gullak". But for now, he is happy to have connected with viewers as Santosh Mishra, the hapless father trying to balance family responsibilities with a dead-end government job.

Khan said he is touched by the emotional messages that pour in from different corners of the country for the show, which saw his character go through a health crisis at the end of the season three. The fourth season premieres on Friday.

"People have sent emotional audio notes saying, ‘It reminded us about the time when our father got a heart attack’. They were like, ‘Will the role of the father be over?’, ‘The father should never die, he should be around’. So, this kind of love gives me energy," he said, adding that he is astounded by “the relatability of the audience abroad” for the small town story of a middle class family.

"People abroad show it (‘Gullak’) to their children and say that, ‘This has been our journey. This is where we’ve started from. This was our family or this is the kind of fun and struggles we’ve had to reach here’. They want their children to learn from our journey." Known to have played supporting roles to top stars including Amitabh Bachchan in “Cheeni Kum”, Salman Khan in “Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam”, Akshay Kumar in “Baby”, “Mission Raniganj” and "Gangs of Wasseypur", Khan said he has had “wonderful” experience working with these stars unlike the stories of ego tussle one hears on the sets.

"I’m from a theatre background and my experience was good. I don’t like to get into controversies but I’ve heard that some directors abuse but I haven’t seen that in front of me. I’ve had a wonderful equation with the biggest of stars, I’ve not had any bad experiences,” he said.

His comments come after his “Gullak” co-star Sunita Rajwar opened up about the discrimination meted out to character actors in the industry. At the Cannes Film Festival, she said actors playing small roles are not respected and are not paid well in the industry.

Created by TVF, "Gullak 4" is directed by Shreyansh Pandey from a script written by Durgesh Singh.