EXCLUSIVE | Abhay Deol: 'My films have never treated supporting characters with insensitivity, they are real people'

The Uphaar Cinema tragedy of 1997 could still be fresh in the minds of the families of the victims. A gross act of negligence resulted in the loss of many lives inside and outside the cinema. 26 years later after the traumatic event, Abhay Deol, Rajshri Deshpande get into the skin of the characters they play in Netflix’s _Trial By Fire_. They play Shekhar and Neelam Krishnamoorthy, a couple that lost its children in that very mishap. In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, they spoke about recreating that world and those emotions the real-life couple must have gone through. And in this interview, we also had the incredibly gifted Rajesh Tailang. When asked about the one scene in the first episode where she cuts her hair while staring into the mirror after her children’s funeral, and what compels her to do so, Deshpande elaborates, “Prashant Nair the director has written this scene, this is the way her grief is. If you remember, everyone around Neelam keeps saying that comb your hair, everyone is watching, so her reaction is that. That’s how Neelam’s grief is shown. I think it’s a very powerful scene and this is how the society behaves with you. They want you to be perfect in all possible situations.” When Shekhar sees the bodies of his children in the hospital, he doesn’t shed a single tear. Is he too shocked to respond? Abhay responds, “You could say that. The shock of something could actually leave you numbed.” Why does he break down when his wife is not at home one day? Is it his loneliness?He says, “It’s not loneliness, he’s also grieving. He understands the fact that his wife is behaving erratically. A lot of the scenes are like that, given the nature of the story. Every scene that had a heightened sense of grief was easy to perform on one level because you were so surprised and shocked that it had happened to someone; and you also prayed this shouldn’t happen to you. On the other hand, it was also very difficult because it’s not easy to go into that zone and then come out of it.” Rajesh Tailang has acted in a lot of shows and films based on real life stories. He has Mangal Pandey, Omertà, Delhi Crime, and now Trial By Fire. What kind of a homework an actor needs to do for such titles? The actor says, “It’s very tricky as an actor but I’ve made a rule for myself, and luckily, a lot of the directors agree with that too. If it’s a biography, I’m not going to copy that person, I’ll try to catch his soul and not the exterior of that person.” Has OTT blurred the lines between character actors and stars? Have the two terms now turned stale and there’s an equal playground for one and all? Abhay takes the charge and says, “Rajesh, you said once na that things are changing? Earlier in films, we had the hero-heroine, the friend, the Aunty and the mother. There was no real thought given to the peripheral characters as real people, they were just support to the main leads. If it’s a show, and if the characters are supporting leads, they are still the leads. When I started making movies, they didn’t treat the peripheral characters with insensitivity, they were real people. It’s not like filmmakers were not doing it before the OTT platform, but they were few and far between. Once the OTT platform came in, it challenged the formulaic way of doing things. So even the films have to now deliver differently.” Tailang adds, “This long format of storytelling is one of the reasons why this change has come I feel. And this change has come in films as well. A lot of people approach me by saying it’s the role of a father. It’s a relationship na, it’s the relationship I share with the protagonist. I have never seen my characters like that. I have seen him as Ramakar Pandit of Mirzapur, Mohan Kumar of Selection Day, or Bhupendra Singh of Delhi Crime. Sometimes we are accused of playing the same characters, men in uniform, but I approach it differently. I feel it’s just my profession, not my character. Every character can be different.”

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