EXCLUSIVE Interview! Manisha Koirala on Netflix’s Heeramandi: “Thank God for OTT’s brilliant content, we don’t have to dance…” | Not Just Bollywood 

‘Heeramandi mai Mallika Jaan Ka Sikka Chalta Hai’. Manisha Koirala has made a comeback with Netflix’s series Heeramandi as Mallika Jaan. In a candid chat with Firstpost, she thanked OTT again and again for changing cinema. “Thank God, we now don’t need to dance around trees and every character is important now with no hero-heroine concept.”

Smashing ageism in Bollywood, Manisha Koirala believes now there is a role for every craftsman in the industry. ‘Heeramandi is a perfect example on how women’s roles in cinema are changing.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

_Heeramandi_ is such an intoxicating series…so what was the preparation of the role like especially going back to that era?

 When you are working with a great director, a lot of work is already been done like the costume, the look, tonality and everything. One has to co-create with the director and as you mentioned the costume and the jewellery bit, yes so we had to dress up for the role too.

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As for me I read the script at least ten times so that the character is at the back of my head when I am performing. I hate to go completely blank and at the end of the day Sanjay is a person who used to like his artists to be well prepared, but now he likes magic and he also changes things last minute.

I do a lot of preparation in my mind like the kind of person Mallika Jaan is, her emotional condition and her backstory and also understanding the layers of her character. We need to be aware of the dynamics of the character.

My first day of shooting on the set, I slowly started understanding what he is looking at and I just wanted to see Sanjay being happy with what I have done. I would start gaging Mallikajaan through his eyes. I could understand what he was looking at and what he was expecting me to do. So, slowly I navigated Mallikajaan and tried to match up to his vision.

Cinema has changed considering what you have done before and what you are doing now with the OTT platform coming in, especially with no hero and heroine and that every character has an important role to play. What is your opinion about this change?

Thank God for the change because I feel now the content that we are creating is for global consumption and now there is a lot more depth and variety when it comes to subject, genres, everything.  And now most importantly we don’t need to run around trees.

I have been watching international cinema for a very long time and I have been watching Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Korean. I feel each time when we do such projects, especially the one which I did with Heeramandi, I feel it’s touched upon in a very creative manner. It’s a piece of life shown in a beautiful and most importantly in a different way. So, it adds some new dynamics to the viewers. The intention is to transport the viewers to a different world. It expands our vision about life.

And thank God again for these changes that happened in our cinema whether it is a grey character, dark character or white character, if it’s done sincerely, no matter how you achieve that goal it doesn’t matter whether you do it spontaneously or whether you are a method actor, at the end of the day people should look at it and they should clap for you and that’s all we artists are striving for. As an artist, to get an opportunity to do various characters is a huge bonus for us. And ‘thank God for OTT’, it has given space for different content. Sometimes this hero-heroine set up is a trap and I just hope it doesn’t fall under this trap ever and flourishes more and more.

WATCH the trailer of Netflix & Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Heeramandi here: