EXCLUSIVE Interview: Radhika Apte on playing a Dalit woman in Made in Heaven Season 2 | Not Just Bollywood

Radhika Apte’s episode on Made in Heaven Season 2 has got rave reviews and at the same time has been embroiled in a few controversies. Leaving the controversies aside, Firstpost caught up with Radhika for an exclusive interview on what went behind the preparation of the role, being discriminated in Bollywood and why often women actors are labelled as troublemakers in the industry if they stand up for their rights. Edited excerpts from the interview:  What was the preparation of your role like playing a Dalit woman? To be very honest with you, the preparation was basically time spent with Neeraj Ghaywan on zoom calls because we were in the middle of COVID at that time.  We shot for eight days for the _Made in Heaven_ Season 2 show.  Even though I have a lot of friends from the Dalit community and have grown up around them, you think you understand a lot of things but you actually don’t. After listening to Neeraj, trying to portray a character that he has written, I felt very humbled. I still really can’t imagine what it is to be like a Dalit. The amount of messages and phone calls I got after playing the role of a Dalit woman in _Made in Heaven_ Season 2 was really heart-warming. As a woman in the industry too I have often felt discriminated and humiliated. Even when I travelled to England, I realised certain parts of England are so racist. They still are. I felt really small and these experiences helped me to prepare for the role. And listening to Neeraj and his stories was heart breaking. But again said that, I really don’t claim what it feels to be a Dalit in our society. ‘Trouble maker’, you called yourself in the show. How much of a trouble maker are you in real life?  You know what I really like about the character of Pallavi Menka in Neeraj’s episode is that he has managed to thread a very thin line and standing up for yourself and the vulnerability and the constant knock down that you get from other people and that is why when my character in the show says trouble maker, I wanted to play it in a way like that she is joking about it and at the same time she is proud of it. I was very happy to have that scene where she said, “Do you think I went too far,” because as women also, the moment we stand up for ourselves in the entertainment industry, we are labelled as ‘difficult actors’ and when men do the same thing and they ask and demand things that are absurd, they are given the respect. Of course things are changing, but this is kind of a norm everywhere. There is a negative connotation to the word ‘trouble maker’, but that’s okay. Your journey in the entertainment industry and on choosing roles… As an actor you are dependent on what you are offered. Most of the time you don’t get what you want and very rarely you get roles which are in sync with my ideologies and taste along with the director and actor I wish to work with. But again saying that you can’t stay at home being unemployed because you have to pay the bills and the rent. You have to sometimes find a way to get commercial viability, economics and art. It is very rare that you get everything.