Sidhant Gupta reacts to allegations of glorifying Charles Sobhraj in Black Warrant: 'He had a gifted...'

Based on the 2019 book  Black Warrant: Confessions of a Tihar Jailer, the series Black Warrant has been receiving tremendous praise and acclaim since it premiered last month on Netflix. While the show is centered on the four jailers played by Zahan Kapoor, Rahul Bhat, Paramvir Singh Cheema, and Anurag Thakur; Sidhant Gupta is seen playing Charles Sobhraj.

Sidhant's enigmatic and charismatic portrayal of the French serial killer has impressed everyone, but some people have also found it as a glorification of the Bikini Killer. Reacting to these allegations, Sidhant told Hindustan Times, "If he’d have done the right thing, people would have called him a genius. But because he has done wrong things, we call him a mastermind, a term well suited for criminals. At the end of the day, he had a gifted mind. And for me, I saw it that I was getting a chance to play the greatest actor. In real life, that’s all he is doing as that’s where he gets his kick, by fooling everyone across Europe and Asia."

The actor further added, "You need to keep hate, crime and all that there is alive through stories and stories itself. It's very important. There's a reason that people like criminal thrillers, murders and action. It's the most important thing to just do whatever is needed to keep all of this alive through stories. We all like watching it as it's where you get the release from." Adding that he was amused by Charles' story, he concluded, "How does he think all this? How is it all possible? Call him conman, call him magician, he is an enigma."

Before playing the French serial killer Charles Sobhraj in Black Warrant, Sidhant Gupta portrayed Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India in the SonyLIV series Freedom At Midnight. Based on the 1975 book of the same name, the 2024 web series was based on the 1947 partition of India.