Nimrat Kaur discusses Dasvi, its prep, and choosing to do light-hearted content: 'I have been sort of boxed in a certain category'

Nimrat Kaur is returning to Hindi films with Dasvi after the 2016 action-thriller _Airlift_. Dasvi is a social comedy that revolves around an eighth grade pass out politician Ganga Ram Chaudhary (Abhishek Bachchan) who lands behind bars following his involvement in a teacher recruitment scam. Kaur plays Bimla Devi, ‘Ganga Ram’s’ wife who is later handed over the chief ministership while her husband is in jail. The 40-year-old actor whose breakthrough, not just to the Indian audience but film lovers across the world, came with the award-winning The Lunchbox, opposite Irrfan Khan, is ecstatic to be part of a comedy after many serious and intense roles be it the grief-stricken yet tenacious Ila in The Lunchbox (2013), or a tough Amrita Katyaal in Airlift (2016), feisty Shikha in The Test Case (2017), brave spy Tasneem Qureshi in Homeland. “I instantly fell in love with the one-line description of her character who evolves into a power-hungry politician from a naïve, demure housewife,” she says.

Excerpts from a chat with the actress who, going forward, hopes to spend more time in Bollywood.

Tell us something about your character in Dasvi and what attracted you to playing Bimladevi?

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The distance from the part and me… there is nothing in common and that’s what attracted me. It was February 2020 when Tushar (Jalota, Director) and Sandeep (Leyzell), one of the writers, gave me just one line introduction to the part. They said ‘Haryana ki ladki hai, ekdum simple, demu_r_e, she is very innocent, she doesn’t know anything. Her husband is the chief minister, he has to go to jail and she enters politics and goes crazy with power going to her head’.

I said I am on and I had no idea about who is playing what, it was like what had happened with The Lunchbox where I just knew one line and I agreed because of that.

This dissimilarity of me between who I am and what I see in the journey from Bimmo to Bimladevi …I can’t relate to anything and that is something that excites me the most.

It was not just a challenge but satisfaction because the lack of comfort of being able to relate to what you are playing brings with it the challenge that you have not prepared for.

What kind of preparation went into playing the part?

The preparation part was so fulfilling and so challenging. I have this crazy streak in me. I had done that with myself even for Test Case, I had gone extreme with it when I leaned up completely to play an army officer. Fitness levels went through the roof and then I had to do the exact opposite for Dasvi where all I did was eat. I used to have sleep issues, physically it was very difficult. I was good 70 kilos by the end of it. I had put on over a period of six to seven months and I had to stay with that weight for over a year due to the pandemic. I had injured my calves while I was working out…a lot happened while prepping up for Dasvi. All these experiences when I look back at my life will be very exciting to remember, this journey in particular because this part I had never imagined being offered. People feel my character is modelled on Rabri Devi which is an easy parallel perhaps but I feel because I don’t know anything about that person’s life for me everything that I did for Bimladevi and for Bimmo was from scratch and from the script. To find her there, to find her in the moments given to her in the script was most exciting.

But most importantly the challenge was not to judge the character, number two, not to take sides, ‘Oh I don’t agree with this…’ Not to have a personal point of view on either Bimmo or Bimladevi, just to live that part and enjoy. The weight part was challenging for me to sustain. I had three days of work left and the lockdown happened. After three months I had to restart work and I had to retain that weight which was very challenging and mentally exhausting for me. The challenge of making sure that at no point in time… it is very tempting to make this kind of a part…it can become a bit caricaturish, you may cross that line, it is very hard then to be able to assess that ‘hey, how much is too much?’. That’s quite a risk as an actor for me for the first time where I don’t know how much is too much. I have tried to stay close and be within the lines but let’s see what happens, time will tell. There was no reference point, it was only the script, my imagination where I found her…

So far you were seen in serious, intense roles, comedy must have come as a relief?

Absolutely. Actually, I prefer light-hearted content but I am often offered serious, intense and intelligent stuff. I have been sort of boxed in a certain category. That is why when this was offered to me I was worried they would change their mind and I was like can we just sign this (laughs). I was hungry to do something unlikely where I get told we didn’t imagine you doing something like this, or I am told again and again that they can’t recognise me or believe that this is you.

Though you have always said that movies are your first love, what has kept you away? You are returning to Hindi films after five years…

I would love to do more movies but I have not taken up stuff that I wasn’t excited about. Sometimes I wanted work but nothing exciting came to me, or I wanted to do something but the makers didn’t want me. That happened a lot. It has also been interesting that I had to divide my time half here and half abroad. It is like maintaining two homes and not enough time to ever give to the other one. When I go there people ask me the same question like where are you, why you are not in LA, you should be working here more. There is always this dilemma of where I should spend more time because I like working in both the places. But this is my home, this is where I belong and I never imagined wanting to live anywhere else. It is a hard one. It is a first-world problem. It is a problem of oneness but I really do want to work here more and there is no doubt about it… whether it is comedy, or romantic light films. Dasvi should hopefully open an interesting chapter and people envision me in different ways. Dasvi is light, lovely and a family watch.

Since the beginning of your career, you’re seen playing strong characters be it Ila in The Lunchbox, or Capt Shikha Sharma in The Test Case. Has it been a conscious choice?

I like to be a part of entertaining yet strong projects. I like impactful characters, I don’t like something that is emotionally weak. The character I am playing should be something I would like to watch as an audience.

So, now do you plan to chase your career in Hindi movies with a bit more aggression, more networking, etc?

Being a pest and badgering people for parts …you become a nuisance for people and am a bit worried about that always. But it is important for people to know that you want to work with them because they can be misunderstood as they may feel she is not interested. There can be misconceptions about that. So I would like to change that and I am doing that. For instance, when I was offered Dasvi I let them know wholeheartedly how interested I was in this film and how I was going to make sure that I pull out all the stops and make sure to do it.

How was it sharing screen space with Abhishek Bachchan?

Working with Abhishek has been incredible, he has a remarkable and inherent sense of humour. It is unscripted, he is so clever, he is so lovely, spontaneous, fun and that translates on screen. I had such wonderful light and lovely times on set with him. It was so funny that in the film, he is in jail and I am doing my thing outside the jail. I was eating all sorts of junk food to gain weight while Abhishek was allowed to have boiled veggies and steamed fish. It was torturous for him.

How do you look at OTT?

OTT platforms are a game-changer. Thanks to the OTT platforms, we have all sorts of actors gaining instant stardom. There is so much employment, work, stories, and opportunities. We have to adapt to the times and all of us have really learnt that one thing over the last two years with circumstances you find a way to work around it because life doesn’t stop. It wasn’t easy to stay on top of the circumstances. I am so grateful that I have a release coming up, I have something which is a talking point as an actor after such a long time. Dasvi is coming on OTT and there is a lot of good in that while being at the movies is a very novel experience for me as a person and as an audience member I love it, that will always be my first love. I rather go to a theatre and watch a movie alone rather than sit at home and watch a movie alone. Just because that works for me I can’t diminish the impact of OTT and the access and the ease with which people get to watch stuff. It is a win-win in every way at this point in time where we are coming from and where we are transitioning into. I am sure we will set, we are in the transition phase right now. It is a matter of time.

Was any work happening during the pandemic? What’s next?

I am doing Foundation season two for Apple TV. I will be going to Prague to finish filming after Dasvi releases. Then there is a series I will be doing here which apparently I can’t talk about. I completed Homeland which is a TV series and after that I came back here. During the first pandemic, I did not film anything. But after 2020, I filmed Dasvi and then the second lockdown happened when I didn’t film anything at all. There is some very interesting stuff coming up and I really hope that I am able to just be on a set working whether here or in LA. I would love to do more films here. It is a great time for female actors to be out and about and re-imagine roles that one doesn’t normally see. I, too, have some female actor-driven projects and that makes me happy. It is a wonderful time.

Seema Sinha is a Mumbai-based mainstream entertainment journalist who has been covering Bollywood and television industry for over two decades. Her forte is candid tell-all interviews, news reporting and newsbreaks, investigative journalism and more. She believes in dismissing what is gossipy, casual, frivolous and fluff.

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