By Akshay Acharya

Mumbai, Feb 7 (IANS): Actor Zakir Hussain is an actor with an astute understanding of the universe of a film or a series. He not just slips into a character effortlessly but also delivers on his part while as per the pitch of the project.

The actor, who is known for his impactful performances in films like 'Ek Hasina Thi', 'Black Friday', 'Paan Singh Tomar', 'Johnny Gaddaar', 'Badlapur' and many more, recently spoke with IANS about his upcoming film turned series 'Ferrous', how he changes gears as per the demands of a script and the rise of OTT.

Talking about how young directors come with the potential to break the rules of the game for the better, he says, "Young directors wanting to work with a new approach will always be a major factor of influence. Working with them is a great experience, as they try to get out of the confines of mainstream filmmaking and come with a different approach, that factor is one of the greater means of influence (on an actor)."

Revealing how 'Ferrous' happened to him, the actor says, "The film came to me a while back from the director Shaurya. I found it pretty intriguing and it immediately got an ok from me. The film is now being released on OTT. Hence, it will be showcased in parts as a web series."

He shares his approach to the character, "The essence of the approach was following the character's traits because every character has certain traits and certain signs that make the character different from the others and a little special. Overall, it wasn't anything special apart from the fact that the character is political and this political nature allows the character to read minds of other characters to drive the story forward."

He adds, "I have done a lot of characters. However, in every character I try to do something different from all my previous roles to keep it fresh. To be honest, every character has their own demands and needs and then as an actor you have your own approach on how to make that character stand out. In this character as well, there were things which were thought of, including the fact that the character is a politician and I tried to add some new elements to it."

Commenting on how OTT has changed things for content creators and artists, he says, "Without any doubt it has provided us with a bigger platform to explore things or our talent and inner strength as an actor. It provides us a vast area to explore and a lot of time unlike cinema in which you have to show a lot of things in a limited period of time."

'Ferrous' written and directed by Shaurya Singh and produced by Vibhu Agarwal's ULLU originals, will be available to stream on ULLU app from February 8.