Exclusive: Bhuvan Bam on fame, casting and why he stopped waiting for opportunities

Bhuvan Bam has come a long way from playing multiple characters in his bedroom and building one of India’s biggest digital audiences from scratch. Today, the actor, creator and producer is headlining Nikkhil Advani’s The Revolutionaries, playing freedom fighter Rash Behari Bose in a historical drama about four young revolutionaries who chose armed resistance against the British Raj. In an exclusive chat with India Today, Bhuvan discussed how, today, an actor’s social media following and popularity can increasingly become part of the casting conversation.

The series, based on Sanjeev Sanyal’s book Revolutionaries: The Other Story of How India Won Its Freedom, also stars Rohit Saraf, Gurfateh Pirzada and Pratibha Ranta.

For Bhuvan, the social media following is something he can gauge almost immediately – whether the filmmaker wants him for his skills or simply to garner attention. He said, “You understand that from their message, phone call or even the first line of the first conversation itself, why they want you. With time, you learn to gauge it. You realise, ‘Okay, maybe this is the reason they have approached me.’”

The actor, who first became a household name through BB Ki Vines before moving into shows such as Dhindora and Taaza Khabar, does not necessarily see that as a bad thing. But he believes the equation has to work both ways.

He said, “You have to see your own selfish interest in it too. There should be a selfish reason: what is there for me in this? What does this do for my profile, my work, my scope in life and the avenues that can open up for me? And if I see something in it, then obviously, it’s a barter. It’s a give and take. You are approaching me for something, but what are you doing for me within that? That matters a lot. So I think that is one thing that you have to gauge and then move forward.”

For Bhuvan, however, the idea of refusing to wait around to be chosen goes much deeper than casting. In many ways, it has been the blueprint of his career.

Before YouTube, he had already gone through auditions and experienced the uncomfortable reality that talent alone does not always determine who gets an opportunity. That frustration eventually drove him to Mumbai from Delhi, even with very little understanding of how the industry worked. Wanting to go beyond his YouTube videos, he launched Dhindora as his first production.

The logic was simple: make mistakes, learn and keep going. “I didn’t want to make something perfect. I am not chasing perfection because there is so much joy in imperfection. I was sure that if it didn’t work, it was still my responsibility. If it worked, then I would also reap its fruits,” he said.

There is perhaps an interesting parallel between that journey and Bhuvan now stepping into the shoes of the Bengali freedom fighter. But the actor was quick to dismiss any direct comparison between his own career and that of a revolutionary figure.

He, though, shared how he was star-struck playing the part, as he said, “I could never compare myself to a figure like that. First of all, when you get a chance to play such a character, you’re in disbelief initially. As for him, I kept wondering, did all this really happen? Did he really do all this? How could they even communicate from one corner of a country to another to bring people together without phones and social media?”

For Bhuvan, playing Bose also became an opportunity to look beyond the version of history most of us encounter in school. He said the series shines a light on figures whose stories are not always part of the mainstream retelling of India’s freedom struggle.

“Whatever we are taught in school is a kind of surface level. After that, you have to do the deep dive. This is an effort from all of us, that, through this show, we can tell the people in India, the children, that this is a story of four people who no one knows about. But still, what they have done has led us today to sit and talk to you. That was the true revolution,” he concluded.

Starting September 11, The Revolutionaries will stream on Prime Video.