Why film actors fail on TV?

I have never really heard of film stars doing well in fictional shows and characters on TV. They may succeed in reality shows and non fiction formats such as talk shows, documentaries or as narrators but I have not heard of a successful serial or short tele series with film stars in it.

Amitabh did Yudh, Hema Malini did Nupur, Jai Mata Ki and Kamini Damini, Vinod Khanna did Maharana Pratap and Mere Apne (which flopped despite Smriti Irani in it as female lead who was top TV star then), Om Puri and Naseer did Bharat ek Khoj, Mirza Ghalib, Tamas, Amar Prem and some more in 80s and early 90s, Poonam Dhillon did Amar Prem, Kitty Party etc, Rati Agnihotri also did some serial, Rajesh Khanna did Ittefaq, Bhabhima, Raghukul Reet sada chali aayi, Apne Paraye which are all forgettable serials, Karisma Kapur did a serial named Karishma on Sahara channel, Raveena Tandon did a serial based on Sahib Biwi aur Ghulam on Sahara but it failed, Nutan also did some serial on Doordarshan in 70s or early 80s but no one remembers it now. Danny Denzogpa did a serial called Ajnabee in 90s on DD, which got acclaim but not popularity. Sridevi's serial Malini Iyer also failed on Sahara channel.

Ashok Kumar tasted some success but only as narrator in Hum Log. Vikram Betaal and Dada dadi ki kahaniyan on Doordarshan in 80s. Om Puri got acclaim for Tamas.

Why do film stars mostly fail when they do fictional shows on TV?

At the most they may get critical acclaim as Om Puri and Naseer got in Bharat ek Khoj, Tamas and Mirza Ghalib or Amitabh got for Yudh but they rarely top TRP charts or gain popularity among masses or have their characters remembered for ages on TV.

Only Kiran Kumar, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Raza Murad, Kanwaljit Singh, Mukesh Khanna, Vijendar Ghatge had success on TV in fictional serials. Out of these actors Kanwaljit, Mukesh, Ghatge had started out in films but failed there which is why they shifted to TV and gained huge success on TV then. Alia's mom Soni Razdan also succeeded on TV with Buniyaad, Aur fir ek din etc.

Alok Nath, Sachin and Reema Lagoo also succeeded both in films and on TV in fictional shows.

Why most popular mainstream film actors fail to make it on TV?

Is it because they are too larger than life or is it because their own real life style or image overshadows characters they play on TV? Or their histrionics do not suit characters on TV?

Atominis, you have to stop posting topics as "Q&A"

I want the right to be able to use the laugh reaction on reply posts when I laugh. IT'S MY RIGHT.

LOL! Okay. Will not choose that option while posting topics again. I did not know IF now had different options to react to different type of topics.

Originally posted by: bollyqueen0

Atominis, you have to stop posting topics as "Q&A"

I want the right to be able to use the laugh reaction on reply posts when I laugh. IT'S MY RIGHT.

For ex, I wanted to 😂 for this post but couldn’t. The frustration is real. 😆

Originally posted by: bollyqueen0

Atominis, you have to stop posting topics as "Q&A"

I want the right to be able to use the laugh reaction on reply posts when I laugh. IT'S MY RIGHT.

Me toooo

Sonali Bendre & Amrita Rao failed too. Maybe they are not picking the right projects What works in movies might not work on TV

Originally posted by: atominis

LOL! Okay. Will not choose that option while posting topics again. I did not know IF now had different options to react to different type of topics.

Yes we can laugh and cry and even use the fire symbol now 😆

Saif Ali Khan, Vivek Oberoi, and Manoj Bajpai succeeded with Sacred Games, Inside Edge, and Family Man. Sushmita Sen and Radhika Apte got acclaim for Aarya and Ghoul. There are probably more.

TV production schedules used to be more demanding with weekly and even daily shoots. Many actors found it hard to adapt and give it their best.

TV shows also had low budgets compared to movies so there often wasn't a lot of CGI, costume, make-up, prosthetics, or even good sets, and characters had to be conveyed wholly through acting.

Another challenge is episodic production. It's not a 2-3 hour film, but multiple 30 minutes to hour-long episodes. It's a learning curve that not everyone manages.

Things are changing with streaming platforms. Some shows spend more than movies to make and the lines between the two are blurring.

Originally posted by: return_to_hades

Saif Ali Khan, Vivek Oberoi, and Manoj Bajpai succeeded with Sacred Games, Inside Edge, and Family Man. Sushmita Sen and Radhika Apte got acclaim for Aarya and Ghoul. There are probably more.

TV production schedules used to be more demanding with weekly and even daily shoots. Many actors found it hard to adapt and give it their best.

TV shows also had low budgets compared to movies so there often wasn't a lot of CGI, costume, make-up, prosthetics, or even good sets, and characters had to be conveyed wholly through acting.

Another challenge is episodic production. It's not a 2-3 hour film, but multiple 30 minutes to hour-long episodes. It's a learning curve that not everyone manages.

Things are changing with streaming platforms. Some shows spend more than movies to make and the lines between the two are blurring.

If an actor is talented then he or she should be able to manage without CGI prosthetics on TV and TV audience is less demanding anyway.

I agree with success of web series but web series are still a classes medium, not a masses medium like TV. More people are likely to watch Doordarshan, Zee or Star Plus than Amazon Prime or Netflix or MX player even today in India.

Web series are shorter, easier to manage and are bolder, can come close to being shot on a better scale than regular TV shows. Some web series are shot on cinematic scale. So I do not think it will be fair to compare success of web series to TV. Some web series also succeed purely because of bolder content rather than just quality. I think Aashram for eg would not succeed much if not for those explicit scenes.

Mainstream TV is different game altogether. I understand daily soap format may tire out film actors who are not used to such shooting schedules. But stars have not succeeded in weeklies or episodics either. Nor they made it in short telefilms that Doordarshan and Star Plus used to show earlier till 2002.

I believe TV is more of a character centric medium and films are perhaps more of star centric medium which is why film stars fail on TV as they rarely become the character and their own persona overpowers the character. For eg, Raj Babbar is still Raj Babbar in Mahabharat and Main Dilli Hoon IMO, his typical acting style and dialogue delivery style overshadowed characters of King Bharat and King Dushyant in both shows.

film actors are always superior to tv actors since ages .......so why would any film actor needs to do kyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi