Govind Namdev: OTT content cannot be watched with the family

Govind Namdev saw a lot of offers for the web space coming his way, but the actor turned them down because of the excessive nudity and gore shown on OTT platforms.

“With OTT not having any censor board, the kind of content that is being produced is more inclined towards pornography. You are openly showing lovemaking, which makes it very uncomfortable for people to watch with family. Makers believed ye bahut accha hai. Ye daaldo toh log dekhenge. That’s why, at one point, there was a flood of such content on every OTT platform,” he shares.

Namdev also points out the violence and cruelty shown on the OTT and calls it ‘very disturbing. “People cannot watch it and hence skip all these scenes to directly jump to the main story. There should be a creative angle to it. Adding such scenes unnecessarily does not make any sense,” he shares, adding, “But I am glad that the problem is being addressed and things are changing.”

The Oh My God actor reveals that after he rejected scripts because of the nudity and gore, he started getting calls from producers specifically mentioning how a certain script is clean with a strong story. “The first thing they tell me is, ‘ye saaf-sutri kahani hai. It’s content-centric and very realistic’. Once I am assured of that, we take the conversation forward and discuss the plot, other actors on board, and my character. Moreover, I am also being told that even the OTT giants are telling the makers that they do not want to include anything that makes their viewers uncomfortable. So, it’s a good change,” says the actor, who always left an impression on the audience’s mind with his performance in several movies since 1991.

Primarily known for playing negative, cruel characters in superhit projects like ‘Bandit Queen’, ‘Prem Granth’, OMG: Oh My God!’, ‘Wanted’, ‘Singham’, Namdev also talks about how doing dark roles over the years influenced his personality. “I definitely see an effect, but it’s not a negative one,” he says and goes on to explain, “There is a huge difference between the person I was 35 years ago and the person I am today. Zameen asmaan ka antar hai. I was a short-tempered person who would get involved in fights very often. I did not care about other people’s feelings, even when they were hurt because of my behaviour. But playing these characters over the years changed my personality, and I became a more positive person. Whenever I came back after shooting cruel, brutal scenes like those of rape and murder, I showed more love and care towards my family, and spent more time with them. Knowingly or unknowingly, my thoughts were, ‘how can this person (the character) kill someone so brutally? Doesn’t seeing those droplets of the victim’s blood bother him? That’s how I kept on changing. And today, the person I am is all because of these characters. I have developed a personality like that of a saint. I don’t want to hurt anyone, even if they hurt me. Jinke saath humne galat kaam kara hai, unki takleef ne hume badal diya hai,” he tells us.

On the work front, he will be seen in several projects, but the one he is most excited about is a silent film called Gandhi Talks. “It’s a two-hour-long silent film and has South Indian superstars like Vijay Sethupathi and Arvind Swamy. The music is given by AR Rahman. I am sure that it will be an interesting watch because no character will talk for 2 hours but there will be a story running on the screen,” he shares.