Jimmy Shergill On His Debut Audio Show 'Siyaah' On Audible: Your Voice Is The Only Thing That Will Convince The Audience About Your Character

Actor Jimmy Shergill has made his audio debut with Audible's 'Siyaah'. He played Kabir, the author of the book 'Siyaah', who starts seeing the characters from his book come to life, leading to confusion and frustration. He seeks help from psychiatrist Dr. Ashutosh, who advises Kabir to eliminate the problematic characters in his book. Following this advice, Kabir starts killing not only the characters but also his girlfriend Kriti and Dr. Ashutosh. 

In an interview with Outlook India, Jimmy Shergill opened up about his experience in the audio format, how he approached his character and a lot more. Here are the excerpts from the interview: 

Tell us about your experience in this new format? 

It was a very good experience. When we got the opportunity, we felt that we should definitely look into it because it's something that we haven't done before. I am very very fond of dubbing. So, I thought we should give it a try and then finally, we had a meeting with the director and she briefed us about the show and then we were given the script. I read and loved it. We did a lot of readings, had a lot of discussions and at one point when we are totally ready to start recording is when we started recording for it and yeah, it was something completely different. There were so many cameras everywhere while we were recording and we just went with the flow. There are certain days when you are sounding nasal or your voice is not sounding very ok. So, you need to back up. And there are other days when your voice might be absolutely fresh and you go ahead and record like about 30-40 pages. We recorded all 12 episodes and I had a great time and luckily there was no read up required at any point. I think that's a great thing. If tomorrow we get a better script than this one, I would love to another one.

Audio format is new to us and we still know little about it. Did you face any challenges?

Neither did I know what it was all about. That's the reason why I wanted to give it a shot. It's like you are sitting down recording with your voice and obviously because you are an actor and you are very much into the scene. So, you are expressing so much and there are cameras everywhere. But those cameras are only for making. The only thing that comes out of the entire thing is your voice and that only reach the audience and they are not going to see any expression or anything else. For me also this is a new format and I will get to know once people listen to it and like it.

How did you approach your character?

You have to concentrate on your voice and your voice is the only thing that is going to reach the audience and will convince them about the character you are portraying. For that a lot of readings is required so that you can convince the audience that this is the character and what he is going through. 

Did it ever cross your mind whether the audience will be able to connect with your character or not?

It happens. When you sit and we were doing the readings and doing discussions with the director, we were talking that normally in video format we have facial expressions and body language to convince people about the character you are portraying but here it's only the voice. She laughed and said that it's the game of the voice. I understood that I have to play with the voice and the entire character is designed keeping in mind the voice. 

If you are offered such kind of character for a web series or a film, will you do it?

would love to go through this experience again. My only thing is that if it's made on video format, it doesn't matter whether you really take me for it or somebody else for it. I just feel that it's such a brilliant script that it should definitely be made into a video format because it's amazing.