Many people think I am not Indian: Meiyang Chang

Meiyang Chang, who has showcased much talent onscreen and has always impressed us with his songs, is part of a web series on VOOT where he plays a gay.

Just like Chang’s character has been tagged in the series, the actor himself has got levelled by many in real life. In a candid conversation with Tellychakkar.com, Chang talks about his experience of being a part of the series, playing such a role and more…

“Untag has been great. Director Ashima Chibber approached me for the role. I had worked with her on an episodic for Bindass a long ago. She told me that the character was that of a gay and asked I was willing to take it up. I told her that if the role was well-written, then why not! Furthermore, we met for script discussions and had a session with the entire cast. It’s a good team. Ashima is a great director and has a lot of sensibility in this case and there are some very good people in the creative team, from VOOT and in the script writing team, who understand the subject well.”

He continues, “Sometimes when you are doing a project then it’s great to have people who understand that bit the best. There were few gay people in the creative team itself and that’s why we got a lot of personal inputs as how things were in their community and that really helped. For example, if someone is making a film on women empowerment then it would be better if a woman made it because she would know it better.”

Elaborating more on the purpose of the web series Untag and the present scenario with the gay community, Chang tells us, “These days, gays are accepted especially in big cities like Delhi or Mumbai whereas it might be something new for the people residing outside the metro cities or smaller towns. That’s the whole purpose behind Untag…to entertain and to convey a message. There is nothing wrong in this, it’s normal. Every character has his/her own trait in the series and how the world sees them is what the series is all about.”

So has he ever been tagged in real life? “I have always got a tag of being an outsider. Many people think that I am not an Indian. It used to happen in my school too. Once we were discussing about our country and then someone told me that ‘tujhe kya fark padta hai, tu toh India se hai hin nahi!’ That was hurtful. Once I was asked to show my passport for visiting a place in India as they assumed that I was a foreigner.”

“It doesn’t bother me if it happens due to ignorance but when tagging and stereotyping happens deliberately then I don’t appreciate it. When people say that I don’t know Hindi then I give it back to them in Hindi. I try to normalize everything especially through my work.”

Chang is happy with the response he has got for his role even though he was a bit sceptical about it. He shares with us, “The response has been good. I was sure about the script as it’s nice and also that we have worked hard and everybody has performed well. In general, I was not sure about the reaction about my character as it was something new and shocking to a lot of people but people are enjoying it, some could relate to it and appreciated it. I have got compliments like I was subtle with my acting without any over drama. I felt good about it.”

Keep up the good work, Chang.