Raveena Tandon seems happy with the success of her latest series Aaranyak which released on Netflix last month. In a role starkly different from the glamorous ones she often played back in the day, Tandon, who made her OTT debut with the show, is impressive as hardcore cop Kasturi Dogra, and her determination to solve the biggest crime that has shaken her little hill town.
The first season ended in such a way that undoubtedly leaves the door open for a second season. In conversation with News18.com, the actor confirmed that the makers are currently working on the second season. “I can’t tell you about the progress of the second season but they are working towards it. We don’t want Aranyak to be a victim of the curse-of-season-2 syndrome so we are making sure that the season 2 is not just going to be a forced attempt. Once I get to know about it, I’ll be in a better position to talk but yes I am happy that we are going to be back with a new season,” she reveals.
Unlike the 90s where older female actors would hardly get any good roles and would often be typecast, in the recent years we have seen the age factor is gradually melting away in India’s show business. Many middle-aged female actors are headlining projects, especially on OTT platforms. Talking about the change, Tandon says, “Back in the day it was a big battle for me to convince the directors that if I was able to do comedy and glamorous roles, I can also do some serious roles. Back in the day there was a huge divide between commercial and art cinema. Commercial actors were somewhere looked down upon by art filmmakers. And to break that divide was a huge thing.”
She further adds that that the lines have blurred, “Today, I can see that an actor like Alia Bhatt doing Student Of The Year and Highway at the same time or Deepika Padukone doing commercial as well as art cinema simultaneously and it is a great thing. And the change hasn’t happened overnight. It has taken it’s time. This transformation is not only on OTT but in cinema as well.”
On the big screen, the actor was last seen in Shab, which released in 2017. Tandon says that she is not in a hurry to sign projects and would love to work at her own pace. “If I wanted to see myself every Friday, I would have randomly signed a lot of projects and scripts that were coming my way. Somehow it wasn’t something that I wanted to do. I want to take things at my own pace and if something really excites me, then I will take it up. So even after Aaranyak, if something good doesn’t come up, I might again give a gap of two years. If I have to work, it has to be really good to invest my time and energy.”
