Bringing alive on screen a community of content creators who are diverse yet similar in their greed to win the race of fame in ‘Escaype Live’ was a challenge, says creator and director Siddharth Kumar Tewary. Streaming on Disney+ Hotstar, ‘Escaype Live’ has been garnering attention for holding a mirror to India’s social media craze.

Set in the landscape of contemporary India, the series explores the different journeys of six regular Indians as they struggle to win fame and fortune on a social media app called Escaype Live.

Sharing the challenges faced while creating the characters, Siddharth Kumar Tewary stressed the importance of the characters reflecting India’s unique demography and content creator community.

He said, “We went through so many apps on social media, created IDs to meet them, talk to them, conduct research to understand their world, their constant efforts and the magnifying effect social media has on them. These are real people dreaming big from remote areas of our country and social media provides them with the much needed platform and an equal opportunity.

Although the series was shot widely “across six cities, we did not just restrict ourselves to metropolitans,” he said. “We have Dance Rani hailing from a remote village in Jaisalmer, aspiring to become a star one day, Meena Kumari from Banaras, who is a trans woman seeking liberation and acceptance, along with someone like Aamcha Spider who wants to get out of his poverty stricken life and achieve big in Mumbai and several others. All my characters are based on real people facing real challenges while also aspiring to make a better future.”

‘Escaype Live’ is a fictional story penned by Jaya Mishra and Siddharth Kumar Tewary that has been produced under the director’s One Life Studios. It features nine episodes that heavily emphasise the human tendency to be competitive.

The show has a cast consisting of Siddharth, Jaaved Jaaferi, Shweta Tripathi Sharma, Swastika Mukherjee, Plabita Borthakur, Waluscha D’Souza, Ritvik Sahore, Sumedh Mudgalkar, Geetika Vidya Ohlyan, Jagjeet Sandhu, Rohit Chandel and child actor Aadyaa Sharma.