A crime thriller that is embroiled in caste prejudices and gang rivalry is Rangbaaz Phirse, streaming on Zee5. The extremely articulate Gul Panag, who stars in the nine-episode-long second season along with Jimmy Shergill, chats with The Telegraph on the show, the evolution of the audience’s viewing experience and the many hats she has worn.

It’s been 20 years since you went to the Miss Universe pageant. How do you look back on the memory?

I can look back and say I have much to be grateful for — my acting career that has been an enabler for everything else that I wanted to do. I wouldn’t want to change a thing.

You have worn many hats in these 20 years, including that of an election candidate’s. Which gave you the most satisfaction?

I believe human beings are multi-faceted. It was only with societal development that we were forced to pick one main vocation. At one stage, human beings did almost anything. Once we became settlers after being hunter-gatherers, the whole division of labour came up and people were forced to choose one thing. I do different things because I like doing it. Our genetic code is exactly what it was when we were in the jungle. I don’t have to take off one hat to put on another. Like I have a private pilot’s licence and I fly twice every month over weekends. It’s a hobby for me. On my licence, I can fly Cessna 152 and 172. I go for joyrides like people go for drives.

When did you shoot for Rangbaaz Phirse?

We shot over August, September and October (2019). It’s inspired by true events. I play the character of Anupriya. She runs the empire for Jimmy (Shergill)’s character Amarpal. She is a stockbroker who loses money and the wrong kind of people are after her. To save herself, she joins Amarpal’s gang. The shooting took place in Bhopal though the story is set in Rajasthan. The season has nine episodes and is independent of the first season.

What kind of a person is Anupriya?

Very balanced, level-headed, planned and methodical. In the past, gangster operations have been run by might. But she uses her mind rather than force.

Is this not linked to the first season of Rangbaaz?

No. The first season was a start-to-end story. This season is about Jimmy’s character who wasn’t born crooked but circumstances forced him to go against the law. He ends up doing what he does to make ends meet. The story of the character ends with the ninth (and the season’s last) episode.

This is your second show on the web.

Yes. My first was The Family Man on Amazon Prime (Video). We had shot for that in 2018. We are already shooting for the second season now.

How do you look at the evolution of the viewing experience?

It is symptomatic of consumer behaviour. Consumers now want instant gratification. The process of watching a film involves advance planning — you have to go to the cinema hall, buy a ticket and if it’s on a weekend you have to buy tickets online in advance. The gratification is delayed. Now the time lag between anticipation and gratification has become non-existent. On TV, you see one episode and you anticipate what will happen next week. Now if you want to watch a show, you watch all nine episodes together. You sit for nine hours. That’s an incredible change.

Gratification is virtually instant now. When you mount a theatrical film, you need to have a minimum audience in mind. Theatrical releases are very expensive. To be viable, a film has to cater to the lowest common denominator. It limits the storytelling options. A corollary of that is a restriction on casting. You need to cast someone of that stature to get people into the theatre. The web is targeted towards a certain kind of audience. In terms of budget, story-telling and casting, the restrictions are less. Platforms like Amazon and Netflix understand consumer behaviour from the films they see. There is an element of AI (artificial intelligence). They can be specific in their targets. You will get one kind of alerts and your husband will get another kind of alerts on your emails.

What kind of films do you watch on the web platforms?

My husband likes science fiction. I like action, thrillers, political drama, chick flicks. The last thing I watched was Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime. It’s action with a geopolitical storyline, a genre I like.

The Oscar-winning German director Volker Schlondorff recently told The Telegraph that with big-budget action films from Hollywood dominating the theatres, good content will only come from the web. Do you agree?

I do. To bring people to the theatre, you need to mount extraordinary projects that cannot be viewed on the small screen. You can’t watch Wonder Woman or Avengers on the small screen, at least for the first time. That doesn’t mean small-budget films will not get made. But the trend is we have to make films that are audacious and more compatible with theatrical experience. Just as planes did not replace trains, I don’t think web can replace cinema.