Abhishek Banerjee, currently enjoying the glory of his recent film Stree 2, spoke to us about this new trend where one sees influencers being picked for projects to cash in on their following. Abhishek, who owns the casting firm Casting Bay, says he too has lost out on roles because of his ‘less’ number of followers on Instagram.
In a conversation with Sucharita Tyagi on her YouTube channel, Abhishek spoke of the risks of giving precedence to social media following over merit. He said, “This is a reality I face as both a casting director and an actor. We need to break this habit. The issue isn’t that influencers are becoming actors; the issue arises when you are deciding to cast someone based on their followers.” He explained that if you’ve narrowed down three people for a role, and then decide to choose the third-best candidate because they have more followers, that’s a serious problem.
“A thumbnail bait might attract viewers to the first episode, but no one will invest nine hours into a web show solely because someone has followers. Many people have more followers than Shah Rukh Khan, but there isn’t a bigger star than him—so comparisons based on followers are rubbish,” he continued.
