Interview with Mayur More | Kota Factory
‘Kota Factory’ is TVF’s latest original. India’s first ‘Black and White’ show highlights the problems present-day IIT-JEE aspirants face in their day-to-day lives.
In that frame, I had the pleasure to interview Mayur More, lead actor of Kota Factory.
1. Please tell us about your Journey from Mass Media Droupout student to Kota Factory?
So basically I started theatre when I was in the first year of mass media in college. I used to have a lot of rehearsals back then because of which I failed to give my exams and then I was a dropout. Before KOTA Factory I had done a couple of theatres and movies. Whosoever happens to call me for auditions, I appear for the same and then I decided to do the movie. Kota factory happened to me in the same way. I got a call to appear for the auditions and then I got selected and that’s how the best happened.
2. Who is Your inspiration or who is your Favourite Youtuber or Actor?
I have many favourite actors, Om Puri sir is one of them. Then, Irfan Khan and currently Nawazzudin Siddique. There are a lot of actors who inspire me. The good work especially motivates me to do better and obviously inspires me. There is an actor called Gagandeb Rihal, whenever I see that guy I feel inspired. So, there are many actors who move me whenever I see them but Om Puri Saab had a really great and powerful impact on me. Especially when I saw his work in Ardhasatya, I feel truly honoured to know such a phenomenal actor like him.
3. What advice do you want to give to the students/ young generation who want to be Youtuber or Actor?
I really don’t know about Youtubers, like what you are actually supposed to do? But you have to follow what you are doing and youtube is one such platform where you can explore yourself very easily. Like you can connect to the audience. But for an actor, I would say, first decide you are supposed to do acting and you wish to be an actor. Because it’s not only coming for auditions and appearing on the screen. It’s a long process, you have to work on your skills and craft on a daily basis and it’s a never-ending process. I would suggest read a lot of stories, watch movies, give a lot of auditions, do plays, do theatre. That’s how I started it. I started enjoying it and it came off naturally. Before all this, I did a lot of odd jobs like delivering credit cards, call centres. But I was very sure, that I cannot do this desk job for the rest of my life. Hence, I started doing theatre, I kept enjoying it and I explored more of it by doing shows on Tv and movies and that’s how the journey began, when you are doing something, never stop and be keen to explore and learn as much as you can. Because it’s a never-ending process to become an actor.
And secondly, one works according to followers on Instagram and people work accordingly. But it’s not necessary since followers and all they come at the later part. First, you keep doing your job and then run after the success rate. The young generation wants to be popular and it’s not a big deal in this social media days. You do one thing, and you happen to be popular. That’s the difference between Prasiddhi and Siddi. You decide prasiddhi chahiye ya siddhi.
4. What excites you the most theatre or Web Series or movies?
Storytelling excites me more. So, theatre is a different medium, storytelling is a different medium. For movies and web series, we use the camera as a medium to tell a story and in theatre, we do live performance on stage. So both have an equal amount of enjoyment and importance. But the theatre doesn’t pay you much so that you can survive in a place like Bombay. So for that, you have to shift your base from web series to films and the good thing about web series is a lot of new stories that people want to tell, they get a platform altogether. So we get good content.
Luckily, we got a good platform where we can narrate new and enriching life stories over television. so people have a great medium. And that’s why web series is working when it is easily accessible over phones, laptops etc.
Theatre has a different experience. You prepare and rehearse for a week or month and then perform and your performance gradually grows. Unlike movies, where projecting one thing it’s always there in the eyes of people. And in the theatre, you are supposed to have a new show every time. Like finding new things in the existing ones. So basically, I enjoy everything, I like being on stage and I like to be in front of the camera as well.
5. Please tell us something about your journey with Kota Factory?
So basically, when I received a call for KOTA Factory, I wasn’t in town, I was in Karnataka spending my new year. I was financially low then and was completely unaware of what to do and when I will be back to Mumbai. Literally, I had 80 bucks in my wallet and then I got a call for Kota Factory and then I went for the auditions and I got selected.
When I read about KOTA Factory, I really liked the content. And more so, it was different from Web series point of view, where there is less educational content and more of different stories. And as an actor, you would want to explore as an actor and KOTA Factory was one of them. I was never good academically and when I read the story, the lead was always keen to study and there were a lot of differences and that was the best part of it to learn and explore something which you have never done or experienced before. I was trying to focus solely on the character as a student and not on anything else. I was without my phone for 1 and a half months and was out of social media for some time to explore the character more in-depth. Luckily, that helped me a lot and I was trying to grasp the environment of KOTA and the study the atmosphere and mindset of students and how they react and tried to understand their mentality and how much pressure they have and their schedule. Despite all this, students happen to cross this stage with maturity, some of them succeed some of them fail. This is the part and parcel of life.
Once a student steps out of college, you happen to explore more and experience different things away from family and friends, you eventually adopt the situation with utmost sincerity and maturity. And this was one thing that I wanted to put in in my character. I had a great time shooting KOTA Factory. The entire team had put in a lot of efforts with positivity and good energy. The script was so good with detailed explanations and that 99% of research work was there. Being an actor we were supposed to deliver it and do justice to it with the amount of authority the script had, so we just had to believe that we are playing that character.
6. Last year you shared screen space with Ashish Vidyarthi for Coca Cola Ad. Tell us something about how it feels like to share the screen with such a legendary actor?
I did an ad with Aashish Vidhyarthi. He really appreciated my work and it was a proud and happy moment for me when you get recognized by such an amazing actor. These people have spent so much time honing their skills that you get to learn a lot of things from them.
The best time I have spent with any actor is Pankaj Tripathi, We worked together in Anaarkali of Ara, a film on Netflix, along with other mainstream actors like Swara Bhaskar, Sanjay Mishra and many more
But talking about Pankaj Tripathi, he is such an amazing personality that I wish every actor should get a chance to work with him. He works with so much ease and he is such a legendary actor that you get to learn a lot of things.
7. Is Acting your only income source or there is something else you do?
Presently, acting is my only income source and whatever I earn is only from Acting.
8. What memorable experience you have from KOTA Factory?
I have many memorable experiences from Kota factory. One of which is a scene where Vartika and Vaibhav are going to appear for the exams where Vaibhav feds “Dahi” curd to her. It was the first scene in the morning. I didn’t have my breakfast that day because I already knew I have to eat curd. The scene was set in the early morning hours so that it gets easy for the crew to control the crowd. We were already pressurized that we need to hurry up for this one. And eventually the scene started, and when Vartika fed me with the curd it actually turned out to be Mayonnaise and I hate mayonnaise. I cannot even stand the smell of it. And the director was like what went wrong when my expression suddenly changed. So that was one such experience.
9. What are your future plans?
I don’t plan. I am just doing what I am getting right now. I need to run my family. So I want to do good stories. Work as an actor and explore different stories with different directors. I don’t worry about the future and it pressurizes a lot.
So my present is nice and people are appreciating and liking Kota factory.
Read our exclusive interview with Revathi Pillai.
