Yami Gautam on playing a kindergarten teacher in A Thursday: ‘I left a lot of things to imagination making room for spontaneity’

Yami Gautam surprised everyone in the role of a ditsy dramatic tik tok star Pari Mishra in 2019 release  Bala; her character turned out to be the highlight of the film. The film proved to be a major turning point in Gautam’s career. The actress had struggled for years and often lamented about getting typecast as merely a pretty face in the industry. Gautam, who has been navigating Bollywood on her own terms now seems to have found a firm foothold with a host of interesting characters coming her way. In her most recent release,  _A_ _Thursday_, a thriller that premiered on Disney+ Hotstar on 17 February, Gautam plays kindergarten teacher Naina Jaiswal, who in a sudden turn of events takes children hostage and the drama unfolds as negotiations kick in between Gautam’s character and cops played by Atul Kulkarni and Neha Dhupia.

“This is the story of a certain Thursday…Naina is a kindergarten school teacher, she comes from a regular middle class family and this is what she happens to do on that day, but why and how and what happens? I took up the challenge immediately. But when I finished reading the script it took me a moment to absorb. Finally I said I will do it, let’s figure out how to do it and I want to do it. Just like the audience is waiting for the suspense to open up, similarly I was waiting to know what it was while reading the script,” says Gautam, sounding excited about her character’s complexity and nuances. “We are working with people, colleagues, we come across people in our day to day life but you never know anyone enough. It may appear that they come from a nice family background but you never know who that person actually is,” she says talking about the sudden shift in her character Naina Jaiswal’s behaviour.

While there may be many reference points and many hostage dramas and thrillers that could have helped her prepare for the role, Gautam says she decided to bring “something of my own”. “I didn’t watch any film specially to prepare for the role. I have watched thrillers in the past but they are all of different categories. You get a different kind of thrill with every story. Gone Girl is also a thriller, there is Seven, a psychological crime thriller, then for me a film like Joker is a psychological drama, or a thriller. I didn’t watch any particular film and that is why I left a lot of things to the imagination on the basis of what I read, on the basis of what Naina is going through. I kept Yami aside, kept my judgment aside. This is a parallel person in your mind and this is what the story and situation is, now just go..that was my approach. I didn’t want to overdo things. The simple lines that can be said with utmost intensity, the idea is to be true to that moment and say it the way you will say it, the way we talk in our day to day life…that takes a lot of practice, a lot of mental and emotional preparation,” she says.

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Gautam furthers, “Naina required me to be so detailed but that is generally part of my homework for any role. I go through the script again and again and I have this habit of making notes. I like to visualise my character in front of my eyes before I have landed on the set. I know to become that character this is how she would talk, this is not the word she would say, this is how the pause should be, this is how the eye expression should be…most of the things I like to imagine beforehand. As much as I was thinking about my character, I wanted to leave room for spontaneity also.”

While there were a lot of emotions that Gautam went through after reading the script, she was absolutely sure about doing it once she was convinced about the director’s honesty and conviction in the subject. “After reading the script I took some time and called Behzad (Khambata, director). I asked him the idea behind the story and what the film meant to him. I really wanted to know. Why do you think this story should be told? I felt he was speaking his heart. He really believes in the film. He doesn’t just want to be part of a trend. He wanted to tell the story with full conviction. He had a lot of clarity over technical treatment which is one of the most important aspects of the film. One part of the film is set, the geography which will not change. It is a different world outside. And then, we were shooting with kids. If you do not have a director who is patient with kids it is not possible to make it. You have to be a child and be on your knees to be able to communicate with them, and then we were shooting during the pandemic where we had to break in between. Behzad is such a solution oriented director. He has managed things without compromising,” says Gautam.

As far as her own experience goes shooting with the kids, Gautam says she was conscious of the fact that she didn’t want to over familiarize with them so that they would take her seriously. “There were times when I wanted to interact more with the kids but I couldn’t because I had to keep going into intense scenes. I also wanted that little wall between us. But I made a point that when I sit on a particular chair that means all of you can come and tell me a story, tell me what you are feeling. We didn’t want them to feel the pressure of the intensity and the kind of film we were shooting. They should feel happy and excited. They used to address me as Naina teacher. By the end of it I knew everything about almost everyone. I knew their poop stories, their tummy issues, I had to do fake make-up on someone every day..(laughs),” says Gautam.

Gautam has her diary full as she has several movies lined up, she plays a crime reporter in Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury’s Lost (with Pankaj Kapur, Rahul Khanna), an IPS officer in Dasvi (co-starring Abhishek Bachchan and Nimrat Kaur), and a crucial role in OMG 2 with Akshay Kumar and Pankaj Tripathi. “In my own small way I am able to contribute to the newage cinema or good cinema. All these films are saying something different. I have made full efforts that whichever character I play I am true to. How busy you are, you get time for your prep or no prep due to tight schedules…well, that is my job. You should not feel that she has not put in any work in a character. Most importantly, I should not feel as an actor that I didn’t do enough for that part. I am glad that I got to be part of some of the most diverse genres last year. Hopefully when these films start rolling out you will know more about what I am talking about,” says Gautam. “Everything changed after Bala. Bala gave me a different canvas altogether. The success of Bala and Pari gave me a different voice altogether to express my choices and what I wanted to do as an actor and that is why it was such an important turning point in my life,” she adds.

Gautam tied the knot with her  Uri: The Surgical Strike director Aditya Dhar last June. Talking about her life post marriage, she signs off saying, “I still feel like a new bride. Aditya and I have only been working ever since. But it is a welcoming change. It is a change where your family has grown bigger, you got a home in Mumbai where you come back home to your family. It is the best feeling in the world when you are sharing your life with someone who shares the same ethics, values, love and respect that you feel the family should be about.”

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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