EXCLUSIVE | 'Freedom At Midnight' actress Ira Dubey on playing Muhammad Ali Jinnah's sister Fatima: 'Was always fascinated by...'

Nikkhil Advani knows a thing or two about scale and grandeur. His last directorial Vedaa was steeped in grotesque violence and gruesome visuals. In that regards, Freedom At Midnight, even after dealing with an issue as barbaric and broad as partition, feels like a breather.

In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, Ira Dubey, who plays the role of Fatima Jinnah, opened up on the world Advani has created for the show now streaming on Sony LIV, playing this complex and challenging character and much more.

Edited excerpts from the interview

It’s a big show that deals with a fascinating subject. How was your prep?

Yes, it’s a big show and a challenging show because history can be told from so many perspectives, and it has been adapted from a book. We have to stay close to the source material, as storytellers, writers, filmmakers, directors, artists, actors, performers, we also have to take some creative liberties and use our own imaginations and that’s where the real magic happens.

More from Entertainment

WATCH! EXCLUSIVE | Netflix’s ‘Saare Jahan Se Accha’ actor Pratik Gandhi on Deepika Padukone's view: ‘8-hour shift will magically transform your creative imagination; I feel for…’ Taylor Swift announces 12th studio album 'The Life of a Showgirl', special edition also likely to release

So, I think it’s a huge challenge to make a show like this and I first like to acknowledge Nikkhil and the whole team because they have done a terrific job of translating this book onto the screen and giving us a wonderful script to work with and of course, me a wonderful part in Fatima. So, I think, yes it’s a very big show and, and it’s a very emotionally important time and subject for all of us in India. That’s the other second part of it, that not only is it a big show but it’s something that we are very very connected to and we have a fascination for.

What was the prep for you in playing this role?

What happened during partition in our country and what led to those decisions at what cost? What were the leaders thinking? How they reach the decisions they did? You know and there is lots of information in this, in this show that we don’t know. You know many many of information that people are going to learn that they never knew before and coming to my prep as Fatima.

I have had a long association in the sense that I have always been fascinated by him (Jinnah) as a historical and political figure. I was first taken up him in 2017 when I fell in love with the book about him and his wife. Then 2022 I met Nikkhil and I sat down with him across the table and he said I am doing this show about partition adapted from this book which we all know and I have read and loved at some point in our lives and then he said he wanted her sister and I was quite startled at that time because obviously there is something, there is some connection with this person. I don’t know what it is. I have some, I get pulled to this man and I think in terms of research there is very little known about Fatima in India.

So, it was a beautiful journey for me. I had a 3 prompted approach to my prep, I think. 1 was that I did a lot of reading first. I tried to understand the history of the time, the politics of the the history of the time, the politics of the time, just a broad sort of an understanding, read as much as I could, absorbed as much as I could. Whatever books were out there on Fatima, 2, 3 of them, I got my hands on.

I read those and then I sort of lived with that for a while. I sat with that for a few months. Then I worked, went ahead and worked with my coach. I worked with the coach quite regularly on and off for various different projects and parts.

How would you describe Nikkhil Advani as a filmmaker?

Nikkhil is a complete leader. I mean both on and offset. He is one of the most inspiring people that I have met in our business and I don’t mean that, I don’t say that lightly. His passion for this material, his warmth as a human being, his intelligence and his true leadership. I don’t know how else to say it. That’s the only way to say it because it permits and infilters and you know filters down to the to every single person on his set, in his team, in his production, in his on his set and I think be it, be it 1 on 1 meetings and conversations that we have had, we are both history buffs, you know, I mean his passion for this material is completely unparalleled.

He is like a child and that’s delightful and it’s so inspiring. From 1 on 1 meetings and sessions that we have had and discussions we have had to seeing him on set with hundreds of people, it’s a marvel watching him and it’s a true inspiration being around someone like Nikkhil and having him direct me in the show and and you know sort of surrendering to the wonderful vision that he has for the show which I hope everyone will see very shortly.

How would you describe the OTT boom that has happened in the last few years?

I think there was no other way. I think there was no other, I think this is the direction that film and television had to go in. The pandemic did something very strange. Of course it caused a lot of grief and death and it was a painful thing for the human risk to go through, but it was an inevitable pause and an inevitable re look at how we live our lives and whether we like it or not, people got accustomed to slowing down to staying at home, to working from home.

So there were many changes, small shifts in lifestyle and perception and the way we consume you know content and culture and you know access and you know it’s everything, everything shifted. So I think that the only way it could have gone was that we have just have a plethora of, of content which is available to us sitting in our homes, on our phones, on our television screens. I think that was the only way it could go. Of course like every other thing that is is is you know, you know really blows up. It could blow up completely also 1 day and I think that’s what happens with the world.