Sunday, 10 October 2021 | Supriya Ramesh
ANUJA SATHE who plays Leela in MX Player’s Ek Thi Begum 2 talks to SUPRIYA RAMESH about her experience of being a part of the show, how did acting happen to her and how her character in this season is different from what she has done anything before
What is Ek Thi Begum about?
Ek thi Begum is all about a woman in the man’s world. She is courageous, she is strong, determined, focused and she can go to any lengths to achieve what she has decided to achieve. I think is the side of a woman which shows her inner strength, pain and heart. Which makes her so revengeful, we can say.
Tell us about your role?
In the first season, Ashraf and her transition to Sapna, a bar dancer and now in the second season as Leela Pasvan with the same motive in mind, but only the hurdles have changed. The people around her have changed, the obstacles have increased and the challenges have increased. So it’s the journey from Ashraf to Sapna to Leela and all about what happens next.
How did you come on board for this project?
Sachin Darekar happens to be the writer and the director of the show. He approached me with the script and we had a narration and script reading in the office and when I acknowledged the story and the character, there were no two ways about it and I just instantly said yes.
You are doing a crime thriller for the first time. How was it different and what challenges did you face?
It was very different from the previous roles that I portrayed before. As we call it a crime thriller, there were a lot of things that I needed to research for, like the era. Which was completely new to me, the late 80s and early 90s underworld. So I was not that aware of the situation at that time. So I had to go through a lot of articles, read a lot of stories about the women involved in underworld. And obviously Sachin and the research team helped me a lot through it.
How much do you relate to your character?
I can absolutely relate to Ashraf as in with the strength, courage, consistency and determination that she has. I think I can definitely identify myself with it because I’m also a quite focused, determined and strong personality myself.
How did acting happen?
I started acting when I was in college but it was not on a professional or a commercial level. I used to do theatre and I had not thought of taking up acting as a career at that time.
I was quite young, I was 19,20 years old. There was this play that was appreciated by a lot of people and I had some friends at that time who had passed out from institutes like FDI, NSD and they all pushed me and encouraged me to do it as a career. Then I got an opportunity to work in a marathi television show which was supposed to happen in Mumbai so I took it up and shifted to Mumbai. So I think that’s where seriously my acting career like in real sense started back in 2009-2010.
You have worked in films. How would you like to differentiate between the working environment of a film and a TV show?
There’s not much of a difference in the working environment as to particularly point out. There is no difference in it. It’s just the difference of a medium. What medium you are working with, just television or OTT or cinema. Its just that. I think television has deadlines because you have to air the episodes on time everyday. It’s an everyday job. I think there is a time crunch there but otherwise work culture or work environment is not different as such.
What has been your favourite role so far and why?
It’s difficult to pick any one character that I have already played on screen. But I think Ashraf in Ek Thi Begum is one of the most challenging and difficult role I ever played. So it’s very close to my heart. I started my Hindi career with a television show called tammanah where I played a cricketer. That was again a challenging one so I think these two are very precious and close to my heart.
How was shooting in the pandemic different?
There was a difference obviously because we had to follow a lot of protocols and government guidelines. There was a time crunch because we were not supposed to shoot for 12-13 hours a day. So we had time crunch, we had to maintain the distance socially and sanitize everything so it was quite time consuming but I think it was great to be back on set and be with the people that I love to work with and I think that’s all mattered. Other stuff will keep on happening like all the safety measures were taken and I think that’s become a new normal for all of us.
