After making his Bollywood debut with Student of the Year 2, YouTuber Harsh Beniwal will soon be seen in Zee5 and Alt Balaji’s upcoming web series -- Who’s your Daddy. He is excited about the series, which is about a young boy and his search for certain questions about his life. “The series starts with the boy asking his father, ‘Who is my mother?’ and the story goes into a flashback,” says Harsh, who will be seen in two different age groups. He adds that everyone will be able to connect with his character. “There is nothing fake about him,” he says.
Harsh, who enjoys a massive fan following with over 7.69 million subscribers on YouTube and over 41 crore views, says that playing characters of two different age groups was a challenge for him. “I had to look like them physically. The things my character did in his younger self, he could not do the same thing as a 40-45-year-old man. The level of energy is different, and I had to keep myself in control. As an actor, my energy is high, so I had to restrict myself,” he says.
Harsh is sharing screen space with Rahul Dev and Nikhil Bhambri in the web directorial debut of Chirag Arora. Harsh can’t stop gushing about Rahul, who plays his on-screen father. “I have seen him act on screen since childhood, so when I met him for the first time, it was a special moment for me. I kept observing him. During the readings, Rahul would keep writing something or the other. It’s always good to write down notes; I realised because sometimes, I used to think something and forget about it when I went to the set,” Harsh says, adding, “There was so much to learn from him. He used to improvise with dialogues.”
Another reason they connected was that both of them belong to Delhi. “I used to ask him about how he shifted to Mumbai, started his career and his work. He shared a lot of stories about life and the profession. While off-screen, we shared such warmth; interestingly, on-screen, we were distant as father and son. I am shown to be angry with him because as a father, he was never there for me,” Harsh says.
As for his film projects post Student…, he says, “I was offered a couple of projects, but I refused them. One of them has also released. I did not find the roles strong enough. I do not want to do anything that will offend my fans, or they will not have fun watching.”
Even though as a content creator and actor, Harsh has made his space in the comedy genre, he wants to explore other genres too. “You might see me in a serious role in the future,” he says.
And is YouTube content taking a back seat because of films and web series? Harsh replies, “I do not want that to happen. But that’s happening because while I was shooting this series, I couldn’t upload any content on my YouTube channel. I write, create, act and work on the music of my videos. YouTube is my first love, and I can’t leave it. I have fun creating content for YouTube because that’s completely my project, and I can work on it the way I want to. I might work less on my channel, but I will never stop working on it.”
His content is mostly college and day-to-day humour which explains his enviable popularity among the youth.
With his YouTube channel going great guns, as well as other avenues, opening up for him, Harsh Beniwal’s fans will see a lot more of the entertainer this year.