OTTplay Awards 2022: Know Your Winners – Parambrata Chatterjee wins Best Supporting Actor for Aranyak

In his more than a two-decade-long journey, Parambrata Chatterjee has managed to carve out an illustrious career as an actor, director and producer in the entertainment industry. After working in television and film in the Bengali film industry, the actor forayed into Bollywood in 2011 in Sujoy Ghosh’s Kahaani with Vidya Balan. Ever since the versatile actor successfully juggled between Mumbai and Kolkata and delivered notable works.

In 2020, soon after the first wave of the pandemic subsided a little, Parambrata started working for Aranyak with Raveena Tandon and others. The team worked for weeks in the sub-zero temperature in Himachal Pradesh for the Netflix thriller. Their hard work paid off as the actors, including Raveena and Parambrata, were lauded by the viewers and critics alike. In fact, it is his stupendous performance in the series that got him the award for Best Supporting Actor Male – Series at the inaugural OTTplay Awards held in Mumbai on September 10.

Also read: OTTplay Awards 2022: Parambrata Chatterjee is best supporting male actor in Aranyak 

After receiving the award from Anupriya Goenka, Parambrata said that he was humbled to have won his first award at the national level. The actor also thanked OTT for all the love he got. “This is my first award at the National level. I have been working for 20 years. For the last few years, the love I received is really humbling and I have only OTT to thank for that. I really hope season 2 releases soon,” Parambrata said. The actor also thanked the creators, the platform -- Netflix, and everyone associated with the show, especially Raveena Tandon for being such a lovely co-actor.

Parambrata started with television. His journey on the big screen began with Hemanter Pakhi in 2003. Due to his long career in Tollywood, he worked extensively with almost all the leading directors in Bengal. From Sandip Ray to Rituparno Ghosh to Goutam Ghose, Anjan Dutt, Srijit Mukherji, Kaushik Ganguly and others – Parambrata has played pivotal characters in almost all the directors' important works. His portrayal of Animesh in Goutam Ghose’s Kalbela has been appreciated by critics. Based on Samaresh Majumder’s iconic novel, the film also features Paoli, Rudranil Ghosh and others. His character, Apu, in Anjan’s The Bong Connection, has received appreciation from all quarters. He has also played a pivotal character in Anik Dutta’s Bhooter Bhobishyot. In fact, he has also worked in the Hindi adaptation of the film, Gang Of Ghosts. Directed by Satish Kaushik, the film was released in 2014 but unlike its Bengali counterpart, the film failed to impress the audience.

Along with Srijit, Parambrata has delivered a number of hit films, including Baishey Shrabon, Hemlock Society and Dwitiyo Purush.

His tryst with Satyajit Ray’s Feluda started in the late 90s when he played Topshe – the sleuth's cousin and assistant – in Sandip Ray’s directorial work. Interestingly, he directed a couple of Feluda stories for Addatimes in 2017. The actor has also played Feluda in those series. Recently, he is shooting as Feluda once again in Arindam Sil’s series for Zee5. Besides Ray’s iconic detective, Parambrata has also played Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay’s Byomkesh Bakshi in Satyanweshi Byomkesh.

Besides his prolific career in acting, Parambrata has also ventured into the direction from a very early age. His direction journey started from TV and he forayed into the big screen with Jiyo Kaka in 2011. Ever since, he directed a number of important films. His directorial work on the biopic of Soumitra Chatterjee, Abhijaan, was released in 2022. It was one of the last works of Soumitra before he passed away on November 15, 2020. Jisshu U Sengupta plays the younger Soumitra in the film while Prosenjit Chatterjee plays Uttam Kumar, Paoli plays Suchitra Sen, and Rudranil Ghosh plays Rabi Ghosh.

Meanwhile, Parambrata has maintained his presence at national levels too. After Kahaani, he was seen in Anukul, Pari, Bulbbul and others. His work in Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi is critically acclaimed. However, it is his performance in Aranyak that brings him accolades. While talking about his experience of working with Raveena Tandon, he maintained that due to his childhood memories of watching the actress on screen, it was ‘a little weird’ initially. However, he also said that it was Raveena’s cordial behaviour that made his journey easy.

Parambrata is currently busy with a number of projects in both Kolkata and Mumbai. His directorial work Boudi Canteen which features Subhashree Ganguly, Soham Chakraborty and others will hit the theatres on September 30. Meanwhile, he has completed shooting Arindam Bhattacharya’s Shibpur and is still working on Arindam Sil’s Shabash Feluda. On the other hand, has recently completed the shooting of Nikhil Advani's Mumbai Diaries season 2 with Konkona Sen Sharma and Satyajit Dubey. He has worked on Sudhir Mishra’s unnamed project – a part of Anubhav Sinha-produced anthology – with Taapsee Pannu. He will soon be seen in Kannada director Pavan Wadyar’s Bollywood debut Notary.