Mohit Raina, seen in Life OK’s Devon Ke Dev Mahadev, has created history of sorts playing the character of Hindu god Shiva onscreen to the T. he is blessed with the proverbial good looks of a Greek god. And his acting skills are well known to all.
Despite so many things backing him, Mohit Raina is in no hurry to switch from TV to the silver screen. "I am happy playing Mahadev at the moment, there are still lots of stories to be told, so my loyalties are towards the serial first. There are no Bollywood aspirations as of now. In fact, after playing God, nothing remains on my wish list," opined the actor, who was in Varanasi to speared awareness about a clean Ganga.
When asked, if he isn’t wary of getting limited as an actor playing godly character as in the past Arun Govil and Nitish Bharadwaj, who were extremely popular as Ram and Krishna respectively, also faced the same issue, Mohit said, "Times have changed. Television as a medium is much stronger now than it was at that time. Every top Bollywood actor is keen to make an appearance on TV, and the success of television actors in Bollywood has been phenomenal, the most recent example is Sushant Singh Rajput. So, the small screen is no longer small."
He added, "Moreover, the character of Shiva has different shades, like romance, action..., so for an actor there is great scope to perform. Till now, he (Mahadev) was confined to calendar art, I am happy that through the serial we have been able to present those aspects of his personality that had remained unexplored so far".
Having said that, Mohit also admits playing Mahadev has not been a cakewalk. "There was a lot of pressure as the makers of the serial were keen to come up with something different, something which had not been created till now. I sat with the research team to understand what strategy they had in mind, but what really helped me was the day-to-day feedback from the viewers, which helped me to grow and evolve. It did not happen overnight. There were certain scenes that involved dancing, so I made sure that I had done proper rehearsals, since I am not a natural dancer. Even the kind of dancing those scenes demanded required some training, which I undertook," he said.
But we must say that you are doing the job with great perfection!