Sunny Leone on taking gun training for Vikram Bhatt's Anamika, working with co-star Sonnalli Seygall and more

Sunny Leone packs a punch in the upcoming web series Anamika, which she promises will be full of action and thrilling cat and mouse chase scenes. The actress, who takes fitness seriously, had done some gun training and fight training in the past that came handy for the series, helmed by Vikram Bhatt. “In the US, you can shoot real guns in a shooting range. You can learn how to hold a gun. It is very different from a toy gun,” says the actress, who also has a house in Los Angeles. “When we started shooting, the first few days Vikram Sir said, ‘Here, hold your gun, you are going to walk around with it the whole day and get used to it’. From that point, I turned it into a fun game. You know shooting everybody on set. The sound effects came from me,” she says with a laugh. But it wasn’t just all fun as she had to sweat it out to nail the character. “For this series, I did some kickboxing training just to get my form correct,” says Leone. The 10-episode series was announced in 2020, but got delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic. The shoot had been halted for a few months, and once it resumed, the cast and crew had to follow strict Covid-19 protocol. “I was a crazy freak about being tested for Covid all the time. Then there was also the stress of the test coming back positive or negative,” she recalls. She was also worried because she had read about cases where people had been asymptomatic. “So that stress was definitely something that was hovering over all of us,” she recalls. But once the camera started rolling, she had a lot of fun. “It was amazing and all the safety protocols and precautions were followed. I am really happy that we could shoot this. I don’t think we will ever forget that time,” she tells Firstpost. The series will drop two days after International Women’s Day,  8 March. “I want them (women) to enjoy the series for what it is. It is a fictional show created for them. It’s all action and a revenge story. It’s about a woman who wants to find out information on a personal note,” she shares. She also has a message for all the women out there. “I think that as women, we should definitely take steps to be a better version of ourselves. Only you know that better version or the best version of yourself. It’s not the big changes that change our lives, it’s the small changes and the little choices you make,” says the Ragini MMS 2 actress. The series also stars Samir Soni and Rahul Dev, but it will see two women engaged in a gripping face-off. “There are action scenes between me and Sonnalli Seygall. Multiple ones, not just one. There’s cat and mouse chase happening and amazing action happening throughout the series,” reveals Leone. Off-screen, the two actresses enjoyed each other’s company. “It was great. We were recently speaking with each other and congratulating each other because we are talking about the series now. It’s going to be released soon. I watched the series and saw that she’s so pretty and she did such an amazing job in it. Even on set we had amazing conversations about life and what’s interesting to us,” she shares about her equation with the Pyaar Ka Punchnama actress. She also hopes to reunite with Bhatt, known for making horror films like Raaz and 1920, in the future. “I really hope to work with him again. I enjoyed it and learnt a lot from him. I respect him and he taught me so much about everything from something personal to acting and how the industry functions,” says the Jism 2 actress. For now, she is enjoying her action avatar. In fact, Leone wouldn’t mind donning khaki in a film too. “If it’s a role that fits for me, of course that would be so much fun (to play a cop). I wouldn’t have to worry about so many wardrobe changes I guess. I’ll just have to show up to work in my uniform,” she says with a laugh. “This character (in Anamika) is an undercover agent and of course she doesn’t wear a uniform. With regards to playing a police officer, my children would be so happy because they love all those things,” says the mother of three. But one action film led by her never made it to theatres. “Veeramadevi didn’t come through all the way. There were some internal issues. I don’t know where anything stands with it. I hope one day it comes through because it was a really nice story. It was something I was really looking forward to,” she says about the historical drama and war film that hit the headlines in 2018. Still, she is excited about her other projects like Rangeela, Shero and Oh My Ghost. “I hope everybody likes the different characters that I’ll play,” she says. Anamika will arrive on MX Player on 10 March. Natalia Ningthoujam is a Manipur-based journalist. She knows how to smoothly switch from being a fan to a writer whenever needed. She tweets at @nattynick.