Anchoring is easier than acting: Abhishek Bachchan (Interview)

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NEW DELHI - Just two episodes after his debut TV show “National Bingo Night”, Abhishek Bachchan has taken a fancy to anchoring and says it is more enjoyable than acting.

Slamming reports that the show is “boring”, he says he is looking forward to a second season.

“If the rating is so high, it means something about the show is working. It can’t just be my face. If it was just my face then other artists who have been on shows earlier would have got the same rating,” Abhishek told IANS in an interview here.

“Anchoring is easier because in acting there are so many other things that come into play,” he said. “Here you just have to be yourself,” said Abhishek, who was here to promote the show.

“I wanted to do something on television that would have been interactive with my audience and ‘Bingo’ was like that. There are 200 (people in the) studio audience with whom I interact and then we have the whole home-viewing audience that sits and watches the show. I was really looking to something like that,” he added.

The actor further lauded television as a means to reach more people.

“Today we actors just have another platform to do our work on. Television is part of a visual and entertainment medium. Actors have found an opportunity and another platform to connect with the audience,” Abhishek told IANS.

So will we see more of Abhishek on the small screen?

“As of now I am only doing ‘Bingo’. It’s a 13-episode season after which if Colors (the channel that airs the show) renews it, we’ll come back with season II,” he said.

“Bingo” opened Jan 23 with a TRP of 5.1, the highest for a Bollywood-anchored non-fiction entertainment show since 2008, according to Television Audience Measurement (TAM).

It has beaten the opening ratings of the shows hosted by Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Shilpa Shetty and Rajeev Khandelwal.

Apart from the serial, Abhishek is busy with films like “Raavan”, “Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey”, “Crooked” and the Hindi adaptation of “The Italian Job”.

When asked if all the four Bachchans - his father, mother, wife and himself - would be seen together in a movie or TV show, he told IANS: “Hopefully! As of now, we haven’t been approached with anything together. But if we do and we all like it, I’m sure we’ll do it.”

“Whatever I am today is because of my parents and my family. Whatever I have learnt in life, whether it is personal or professional has been from my parents,” he added.

The Bachchans are referred as the first family of Bollywood, but Abhishek doesn’t pay heed to such titles.

“We’re a family. We are happy about that. Being the first, second or third family doesn’t matter to us. That changes every two years,” he said.

(Robin Bansal can be contacted at robin.b@ians.in)