Breaking the Good-Man Image: Sharad Kelkar Opens up About Going Menacing in Taskaree: The challenge was to remove warmth

For years, Sharad Kelkar has been one of Indian television and then the OTT’s most dependable leading men – the upright officer, the dependable husband, the man audiences instinctively trust. Even as he transitioned into films and streaming, that core image remained intact. Which is precisely why his turn in Netflix’s Taskaree landed with such force.

In the high-stakes crime drama backed by Neeraj Pandey, Kelkar plays a cold-blooded mastermind operating at the centre of a smuggling syndicate, a role that sharply contradicted both his screen history and his public persona. It’s an act of deliberate anti-casting and one the actor seemed to relish.

“Most of my work, especially on television, has conditioned audiences to see me as the ‘good man’. There’s a certain emotional expectation that comes with that. Taskaree disrupted it completely,” he says with a smile.

The shock is immediate. Kelkar’s character is calm, ruthless and strategic, someone who doesn’t need to announce his power. In the trailer alone, his lines were enough to give you the chills. For viewers familiar with his kinder, more reassuring roles, the transformation is unsettling by design. “That discomfort was intentional. If the audience felt betrayed by their expectations, then the casting has done its job,” he says.

Kelkar acknowledged that his background played a key role in how the character is being received. “Television creates long-term intimacy. People feel they know you for years, almost decades. When you enter a morally dark space after that, the reaction is stronger. I was very conscious of using that history rather than fighting it and that’s exactly why I enjoyed the role far more! No one could think of me as the bad guy and I love that for this role!”

Instead of reinventing himself through physical changes or exaggerated villainy, Kelkar focused on internal calibration. “The challenge wasn’t to appear evil,” he notes. “It was to remove warmth. To strip away empathy from the performance without adding noise.”

Created by Neeraj Pandey, Taskaree was a bag of twists and Kelkar says that suited the role. He says, “Neeraj sir is very precise about behaviour. He didn’t want commentary from the actor. He wanted intention. That pushed me into a more technical headspace, thinking about how little you can give away. Actors can get boxed in by affection. The audience’s love is valuable, but it can also limit you if you’re not careful. I wanted to occupy a space that made me, and them, uneasy.”

That willingness to unsettle may well redefine how Sharad Kelkar is perceived going forward. In Taskaree, the man once synonymous with trust becomes someone audiences fear and that inversion, carefully constructed and confidently performed, stands as one of the series’ most compelling choices.