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Gurmeet Choudhary says he was ‘presented as an action hero’ with Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein 2 and Commander Karan Saxena

ByAkash Bhatnagar
Dec 28, 2024 05:26 PM IST

Gurmeet Choudhary opens up on his year with Commander Karan Saxena and Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein, being a father and society's discrimination towards daughters

Gurmeet Choudhary had a double bonanza this year as he made his OTT debut with Commander Karan Saxena and followed it with Yeh Kaali Kaali Ankhein season 2. Both the shows emerged successful and the actor says, “I felt Durga maa ki taakat in 2024, and next year, I am going to step it up. This year, the era of Gurmeet Choudhary has started and I will kill it in 2025. I always wanted to be an action hero and this year presented me to the audience in that avatar.”

Gurmeet Choudhary on his 2024(Photo: Instagram)
Gurmeet Choudhary on his 2024(Photo: Instagram)

Ask him why he took this long to make his OTT debut and he shares, “I left TV in 2013-14, and I had been getting OTT offers since then. But I had done the show format, so I was more pulled towards seeing myself on the 70 mm. I wouldn’t get as excited for web shows, but now the audience has also increased on the web today, and there are so many interesting people working here. I didn’t want to do typical OTT shows, thus, I waited.”

While he played an army man in Commander Karan Saxena, which he says is an ode to his father who was from the army, in YKKA, Gurmeet was the new entrant. Having always played the lead in any medium, were their apprehensions to take on a parallel lead to actor Tahir Raj Bhasin in this show? “My character Guru is a hero in himself. He has his own heroism. So, it was like the entry of a second hero in season 2. Also, Debina (Bonnerjee, actor-wife) was an avid viewer of season 1. So, when the offer came, I told her and she told me, ‘sochna bhi mat, seedha kar le’,” he responds.

Both these shows came after a long absence from screen post Covid for Gurmeet, and he addresses it, saying, “I had done romance, drama, action and everything on TV, but I wasn’t getting those opportunities in films. Even though some of my films worked, it wasn’t the work that I wanted to do. So, I said no to many films that came in between. Although, I kept working on myself throughout to be ready for an action role as that’s what I wanted to do. That’s when both the shows came to me.”

In this while, the actor took on his life’s most important role, of being a father to his two daughters Lianna and Divisha. While he is a proud father, he asserts that people around him still discriminate on the basis of gender: “We live in 2024, a big city and in a modern world, but when we had our second daughter, many people said to us ‘ladka hona chahiye tha’. Debina and I faced a lot through that time. I even cried hiding in the bathroom after Divisha’s birth because I would get calls from my own people saying ‘Oh, firse beti hui hai’.” But he is unperturbed by any of those words, and is now working for them. “Till now, I was working for myself, but now whenever I close my eyes, I see Lianna and Divisha. All I want is that when they grow up, they should be able to proudly mention my work and say our dad did this. So, now I am choosing work for them,” he ends.

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