MUSBA HASHMI speaks with DEEPIKA SINGH about her transition from playing a cop to a devoted wife and how doing supernatural shows affect actors
I play Sandhya, a Bharatnatyam dancer. She is a simple, loving and caring girl. She believes in true love and supports her family. She believes in God but not in the supernatural. She is a dignified woman and knows how to carry herself. On Mahashivratri, during an inauspicious hour something happens to her which creates a havoc in her love life. She is torn between who to be with, Angad (who she loves) or Kapil (who will enter her life at a later stage).
nDid you have to do a lot of preparations for the role?
Yes. I am learning Marathi and working on my accent. I have to get the language right. For dance, I didn’t have to do much because I am a Odissi dancer. But still I make sure to take some time out and practice my steps. I also do yoga because a lot of body work is involved in dance so we have to prepare our body for that.
This role is completely different from my previous work. I was patiently waiting for a long time for the right role to come and this was what attracted me and what I wanted. Also, it is a big show and a big production house — Balaji Telefilms. I am glad that I get to work with them.
n Are you affected personally because you are part of a supernatural show?
No, not exactly. But yes, if you are playing a character and shooting for 12 hours then you need a couple of hours to calm yourself. We can’t just finish shooting and go back to sleep. It is not that easy. We need some time to calm our mind. This is what I love about my work. I love taking challenges and whenever I find myself in my comfort zone, I get bored of it. These challenges wake me up for the next day and bring in that motivation to reach the sets even before the call time and go through the script and find out what new or different I can do today.
It is a mere co-incidence that I have got the character with the same name again. Other than this there are no similarities in my roles. Sandhya (Rathi) in Diya Aur Bati Hum was an independent and a career-oriented girl but Sandhya in Kawach... is loving and caring. She is more inclined towards her family while the previous Sandhya was not. Sandhya is madly in love and will do anything to get the love of her life back while Sandhya (Rathi) was not fond of love. Both the roles are different from each other. While playing this Sandhya, every day comes as a challenge. I have to start afresh each day.
While I was in college, I saw a stage play and I got infatuated with acting. I used to imagine, how people perform on stage and they get to perform different characters in one life. This idea always excited me. I wanted to experiment with different roles. I was doing B Com Honours at that time and my family was not in favour of me doing acting. But the idea of becoming an actor took root in me. I started doing events and got my portfolio. Then I won Miss Delhi title. This kept on adding to my career and I started getting calls for ads. I would say acting never left me. I was not interested in getting selected for any role but I just wanted to act. Then, I auditioned for Diya Aur Bati Hum and I was selected.
My family was in shock when they got to know that I have been selected. For them I was a shy person, who has not even held a mic in her hand, which definitely was the case, I used to get nervous on stage. When I used to get on stage to give speeches, my hands used to shake for the first five to 10 seconds while holding the mic. My family never saw me acting so they were worried that I was taking a risk in my career. They thought: Iss ko kisi ney bol diya hai ki yeh sundar dikhti hai isliye isko acting karni hai. When they saw the first episode of my show, my father immediately called to tell me that this is the right profession for me and this is where I belong.
The journey has been amazing. I am a positive person. I don’t know what are downs. I can find positivity in the worst of situations. I trust God and I believe even if I am going through a bad phase in life, it is just a ladder to success. I see difficulties as a way to get prepared for the next level.nDo you have a checklist when it comes to signing projects?
Not at all. I see opportunities as God’s blessings. I go with the first thought that I get after reading the scripts. If it appealed to me in the first go and I feel excited to do that work, I just go for it without giving it a second thought.