Priority is to do better and work with great directors, says actor Akshay Oberoi

Mumbai, Apr 27 (PTI) Actor Akshay Oberoi says he has a straightforward approach to his career — getting better at his craft with each day and believing that opportunities will follow.

Oberoi, who has appeared in supporting parts films like “Gurgaon”, “Thar”, “Kaalakaandi” and most recently Hrithik Roshan’s “Fighter”, said he has never been to get noticed at parties or airports.

“My entire approach has been, ‘I want to get better every day and I want to work with great people’. I’ve kept it very simple for myself, and haven’t tried to do anything beyond that. I’m not the guy that shows up in pap (videos), or with new looks at the airport, my priority was never that,” the actor told PTI.

Oberoi said it took him a lot of time to find a film like “Fighter”, which also featured Deepika Padukone and Anil Kapoor. The movie was released in theatres in January.

“‘Fighter’ happened on the back of a lot of work that people haven’t watched mostly… It took me over a decade in the business to have a film like ‘Fighter’ that the world watches,” said the actor, who played the role of Squadron Leader Basheer “Bash” Khan in the movie.

The 39-year-old actor will be next seen in the sophomore season of “The Broken News”, a project he chose because he got the opportunity to play an interesting character.

An adaptation of the popular 2018 British series “Press”, “The Broken News” is led by Sonali Bendre, Jaideep Ahlawat and Shriya Pilgaonkar. It is directed by Vinay Waikul.

“There have been people who have asked me, ‘You are coming to an established show like ‘The Broken News’, (but) the focus is on the other actors.’ I was like, ‘I don’t think about it’. I found the director interesting and wanted to do a good role, and that’s the way I’ve aligned myself,” he said.

“I’ve worked with Vinay sir on ‘The Test Case’ (the 2017 series), so we had that comfort level. He is the only director in Bombay, who has used me for my American accent, and he said, ‘Why don’t we try this way?’ I felt it was unique,” said Oberoi, who was born in New Jersey, US.

According to Oberoi, “The Broken News” exposes the agenda-driven nature of the media and the movie industry. “Unfortunately, we live in a capitalistic world; money is the thing that runs everything, so nothing can be organic or pure. The show does a good job of highlighting these kinds of things because in 2024, the audience is aware that all the information that we are getting from news is not exactly accurate. There’s an agenda behind it. There’s a reason why an article is put out.”

With the new season, Waikul said the team went deep into exploring the characters. “While working on season one, we felt there was so much that we haven’t told. The characters are so interesting; we always felt it would be unfair if we had only one season, we had to write season two,” the director said.

“The Broken News” season two, which also stars Indraneil Sengupta and Kiran Kumar, will premiere on ZEE5 on May 3.