EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW! Bangladeshi actor Azmeri Haque on Netflix’s Khufiya & Tabu | Not Just Bollywood

Azmeri Haque Badhon life has been really bumpy. In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, she talks about her struggles in joining the entertainment industry and how differently the entertainment industry functions in Bangladesh. Single mother of a 12- year-old kid, now her only want from life is the freedom to choose the way she wants to live. Edited excerpts from the interview: When did you decide to join cinema? My personal journey of self-discovery has been really harsh. You will be surprised to know that I have attempted suicide three to four times. I am a single mother. I was married twice. In fact, my first marriage happened when I was just 19-years-old. I have a daughter who is 12 now from my second marriage. The society that I live in made me feel that I am the cause of all thighs that went wrong in my life. For a very long time after joining the entertainment industry, I had this fear that the way the society in Bangladesh looks at me, probably I will never be able to get my daughter married. Then I realised that I have lost everything in life and then I joined the entertainment industry. So, I have no fear because now I have nothing to lose. Now, I need freedom to make my own life choices! Was it your childhood dream to be an actor? Not actually. In fact, I would say I was never allowed to express my dream or what actually I wanted from life. I was told to be a ‘good girl’. The typical good girl you understand and I was the ‘good girl’ that my parents wanted me to be.  My parents always expected me to get married, have kids and also do some job. But they never wanted me to be an actor even in their wildest of dreams. I am a dentist because my parents wanted me to be a dentist. My acting career took off just five years back with Rehana. It was actually Rehana which gave an exciting start to my career. Before that I was just doing some play and some roles in cinema. Tell us about your preparation for the role of Khufiya as a spy? My initial schooling on acting was by my director Abdullah Mohammed Saad who is the director of Rehana, the first Bangladeshi film which was officially selected for Cannes film festival 2021.  He told me that ‘I have to forget how to act’. This is the most important thing that I have learned. He said you have to understand the character’s situation and you have to just react like that character. So, I was just trying to forget myself onscreen and become Octopus in Netflix’s Khufiya. That was my only preparation to forget myself and get into the skin of the character. And for understanding Octopus Vishal Bhardwaj helped me as a director. He explained the different mannerisms of my character, which helped me hugely in the preparation for the role. What was the most challenging part of being Octopus in Khufiya ? The most challenging part was to perform in front of one of the greatest actors of Indian cinema, Tabu. I am a huge fan of her and I admire her work and her views about life are beautiful. I was so nervous as Octopus had to overpower KM onscreen. I felt my personal affection for her might affect my performance as Octopus on screen. But she was too good to me and gave me so much comfort and space that I could do my job. This is the biggest quality of Tabu is that she gives space to her co-actors. She is mature and this quality reflects how secure she is.  She believes that if I fail to perform correctly, then that will be a whole failure of the team. The fact that she was so cooperative, helped me feel comfortable in certain scenes with her onscreen.

What was your experience of working with Vishal Bhardwaj? It was a great experience working with Vishal and his team. He is such a talented person and at the same time he is so humble and down to earth. He gives respect to everyone on set. How differently does the entertainment industry function in Bangladesh? The main difference is the budget and market of cinema. And the technical skill as well. We don’t have any institutional support in Bangladesh. The technical team picks up the skill at work. The presence of women on the team is less, but for Khufiya, what I noticed was that 60 percent females were there on the team working in different sectors. On cinema changing… World cinema has changed a lot with time and our subcontinental cinema as well with time. They have become more realistic. Female lead stories are more found in world cinema whereas in Bangladesh, that is not the scene because of our social structure. In Indian cinema on the other hand, I saw a significant change in women’s roles. Now, there are a lot of female lead shows and films on OTT which is a very good sign. It’s not like that a female in cinema is like an accessory to glamorise a film. The portrayal of females has changed. Now we are more real rather than those females who only exist in the eyes of a certain group of people. The gaze is changing when it comes to women’s roles.

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