Riteish Deshmukh, known for his slate of comedy films from Masti to Dhamaal to Housefull, is now all set to make his OTT debut with a rather serious role in the show Pill. The show has been created by Rajkumar Gupta of No One Killed Jessica and Raid fame. In the show, Riteish plays a medical officer who takes on a pharma giant over many of their practices.

In an exclusive interview with ETimes, the actor shared if he’s okay with popping pills or if he restrains himself.He said, “I’m not a pill-happy guy. I don’t usually pop pills, but if I compare myself to Genelia, then I’m a pill-happy guy because she doesn’t take a pill at all. Pills that are necessary for your body, like daily vitamins and D3 and B12, etc., we take religiously every morning. But, paracetamol and all, we tend to avoid it.”
Talking about the seriousness of his role and the real-life implications, he said, “The kind of research that goes into finding a cure for a particular disease costs money. But the multitude of profit that the pharma seeks for the research they do is just too much. And it weighs too much on common people. They are not able to afford the medicines. There are so many people I see on video who say, ‘We’d rather die than pay for medicines because, anyway, this is eventual death by paying.’ So that affordability is something that needs to be checked.”
“And that goes into let’s do insurance. But then, medical insurance, medicines, hospitals, this entire nexus is another ball game altogether. And probably that might be Pill part two. But when we talk about this series, Pill, we equate pills and Mandir ka Prasad in the same light. We consume it without questioning. We don’t even know what goes into a medicine, whether the efficacy, the potency is correct. We are not even too sure. I always say that the one thing we should do is get a doctor whom you can trust blindly. At least he will give you the right medicine,” he added.