Actress Rhea Chakraborty tells Ayushi Sharma how the film is complicated but relatable
Love is not something that you can resist even if you know that it is complicated. Relationships have their ups and downs and how we navigate through those roadblocks which life throws at us is what the film Jalebi is all about.
Actress Rhea Chakraborty is back with her first film of 2018, Jalebi, which is a tale of romance where protagonists Aisha (played by Rhea) and Dev meet each other again after seven years on a train journey.
Rhea who has also been part of films like, Half Girlfriend, Mere Dad Ki Maruti and Sonali Cable says that her journey from her first film to the current one has been “torturous”. She says, “I have always played a happy-go-lucky girl in most of my films but the fact is that a happy-go-lucky person actually has a different side too but we don’t get to reveal that as actors. We don’t always get to play everything that we actually are. There’s a different side of mine that was gathering dust. That side is full of escapism that I had hidden somewhere deep down in the dark corners of my heart. It takes very brave people to see that and Bhatt sahab (Mahesh) and Pushpadeep (Bhardwaj) could see that in me, even though my image and what I portray has been far different. But, trust me they can look through personas, shatter the lookingglass and can see what’s deep down inside.”
“I really enjoyed working with Bhatt sahab and Pushpadeep because I have not got the opportunity to play a character as intense as Aisha. Just like every coin has two sides, beneath the bubbliness of mine there comes pain and heartbreak I go through and I have portrayed that here,” she adds.
After shooting for Jalebi Rhea’s take on love has completely changed. She thinks that this film is the most genuine portrayal of a new day relationship.
The Mere dad ki maruti actress feels that most of the love stories which are being showcased these days don’t have conflicts that are part of this generation and that they are earlier conflicts which are still carried forward in films. She says, “Conflicts of your world vs my world, and you being a different entity chasing your dreams and me being a different entity does not make me wrong but it simply may not make us compatible.”
In the wake of #MeToo movement, with which the industry is continuing to grapple with, she says that the movement came one year ago in America, people spoke even then, people are speaking even now. Now that a couple of Bollywood insiders have spoken it’s become a focus point.
“I’m glad that my industry is bringing about a flow of change because more girls need to speak up and more girls need to feel that there are girls out there who are taking the initiative of speaking out loud to the world so that they are not fearful and scared anymore. At the same time, we’ve been discussing so much on this that until and unless there’s a solution to the problem it’s just going to be some debatable or conversational topic with worthless finger pointing,” says Rhea.
The film also stars debutant Varun Mitra, presented by Vishesh Films in association with Mahesh Bhatt. Jalebi is a remake of the Bengali film Praktan starting Prosenjit Kumar and Rituparna Ghosh.
Photo: Pankaj Kumar