Abhishek Bachchan says, enough is enough. The actor, currently seen on the second season of the show Breathe: Into the Shadows, is puzzled how could anyone find the treatment and depiction of mental health on the show inaccurate when it was something the team was especially particular to get right.
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On the Mayank Sharma-created Prime Video thriller, Abhishek plays a psychiatrist who also suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder. When the show’s first season premiered in 2020, a section had criticised it for reinforcing stigma around mental health and turning it into a stereotype.
In an interview with indianexpress.com, Abhishek said he is baffled that the show faced such a criticism, when a team of doctors were personally involved in the script.
“I completely disagree. People who have said that have no idea what they are talking about. There were four-five doctors that worked on the script, Mayank’s brother-in-law is a psychiatrist who works particularly in this disorder. That is of paramount importance to us, to be sensitive to mental health, especially to people with similar disorders,” Abhishek said.
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The actor said the team of the show worked in tandem with psychiatrists to ensure the depiction was accurate. “We consulted his brother-in-law daily from sets, one of my best friends is a psychiatrist, who I used to work with to understand the sensitivities of how a doctor would approach their patients.”
“So, I think they are completely wrong and these are sensationalists who just want to say something because they have a platform to say. I am sorry to come out so aggressively but anybody who says (we) stigmatized mental health has no clue what they are talking about, because that was the first thing we kept in mind.”
Abhishek said Breathe: Into the Shadows wasn’t mounted to be about “mental health, about multiple personality disorder”, but these aspects are merely part of the story and of the character. “It wasn’t a show to sensitize people about this and it never was the prime focus. Having said that, Mayank went to huge lengths to ensure that nobody would be able to say this.”
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Abhishek feels it has become “convenient to catch filmmakers and storytellers” over an issue, which the actor says is extremely unfair. “If we have to nitpick, I can find a problem with anything. You have to understand what the intention of the show is.
“We are not making a show about a sick person and making his journey, but if that’s what you want to make the show about, then you are barking at the wrong tree. You can have discourses, no one is denying that, there is freedom of speech but to point fingers erroneously is unfair, especially when someone has spent good two years paying attention to this very topic,” he added.
Breathe: Into the Shadows season two also stars Amit Sadh, Naveen Kasturia and Saiyami Kher. The series, produced by Vikram Malhotra and Abundantia Entertainment, is written by Mayank, Vikram Tuli, Arshad Syed, Priya Saggi, and Abhijeet Deshpande.
