Srikant Tiwari embodies every common man, says Manoj Bajpayee ahead of ‘The Family Man’ season 3

Mumbai, Nov 7 (PTI) Actor Manoj Bajpayee on Friday said he personally loves essaying Srikant Tiwari, the spy character of the fan-favourite series “The Family Man”, as he believes the role is an amalgamation of everything human.

Bajpayee will be back as Tiwari in the show's upcoming third season, which will see the intelligence agent turn fugitive as he goes on the run with his family, hunted by both formidable new enemies and his own agency, while racing against time to avert a looming national crisis.     At the trailer launch event here, Bajpayee said Srikant is a deeply human character -- someone with both strengths and flaws, just like any ordinary person.

"I personally love playing this character, also because it has everything about a human being. All the faults, all the advantages and disadvantages of every human being. That is the reason the audience likes him. He looks like everyone's father, husband, friend, companion and colleague.

"I think Srikant Tiwari is also any guy who is travelling in the metro here or any guy who is going in the car in the traffic that's the biggest strength of the character,” Bajpayee told reporters.

The actor had a busy year with three back-to-back projects, all belonging to different genres -- surrealist drama "The Fable", followed by crime comedy "Inspector Zende" and now the third season of "The Family Man".

The 56-year-old actor said variety is the fuel of his career.

"That's what I am passionate about. That's what gives me a kick just being an actor when you can do or dabble with different genres and try to excel in each and everything that you are doing, and with different directors who have very different opinion about cinema and direction.

"It's a challenge for an actor to fit into all of these interpretations and opinions and come out feeling happy that you've given your best and you've done well," Bajpayee said.

The show's new season introduces Jaideep Ahlawat and Nimrat Kaur as the villains Rukma and Meera, respectively.

The Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK-created series also brings back its ensemble cast of Sharib Hashmi, Priyamani, Ashlesha Thakur, Vedant Sinha, Shreya Dhanwanthary and Gul Panag.

Krishna DK said they owed it to viewers a worthy third season of the show after the success of its earlier chapters in 2019 and 2021.

    "We did give it a little bit of glimpse of 'The Family man' in 'Farzi' just to keep everybody in the loop saying, 'okay, it's coming'. And then finally took us this long to make it.

"But every season is progressively more difficult than the previous season. And because the challenge is not just telling that same story. The reason one season works is because it catches you by surprise. Now when you have to make the next season, there's a lot of things that are expected. So how do you still surprise people? So that's the biggest challenge of making a subsequent season." Raj Nidimoru said they had to think really hard to come up with the villains for season three.

“Srikant is getting too tough to handle. In the first season, we had Musa and Sajid — it was all part of a larger nexus. Then came Raji and her group in season two. This time, we really had to crack our brains to come up with a worthy antagonist.

"We didn’t realise earlier that we had been creating such big villains each season, so we knew we had to make this one even more formidable for Srikant and his team. We decided to balance brains and brawn — someone who could truly challenge an intelligence agent like Srikant," he added.

Written by Raj, DK, and Suman Kumar, with dialogues by Sumit Arora, the third instalment is directed by Raj & DK, with Suman Kumar and Tusshar Seyth also coming on board as directors for the upcoming season.

"The Family Man" season three will premiere on Prime Video on November 21. PTI SSG RB RB BK BK