National award winning actress Konkona Sen Sharma is back in Bollywood with an investigative thriller based on a real life story. In 2013, Konkona was seen playing the role of a dayan (witch) in Bollywood film "Ek Thi Dayan" and two years later we will see her play the role of a mother in Meghna Gulzar's "Talvar".
"Talvar" is based on the 2008 Aarushi Talwar-Hemraj murder case and Konkona is playing the role of Nupur Talwar (Aarushi's mother) in the film.
In an exclusive interview with IBTimes India, Konkona reveals why she decided to take up the project and her experience working with director Meghna Gulzar.
Here are excerpts from the interview –
Tell us about your experience working with Irrfan Khan, Tabu and Meghna Gulzar...
It's always fantastic to work with Irrfan. He is such a wonderful actor. I have not worked with him actually for many years. It's such a pleasure to work with him, because he is so good and such a normal and regular person, such a generous actor and I love working with him.
Unfortunately, in this film we did not have too many scenes together. I actually had a lot of interactions with Neeraj Kabi, who is a fantastic actor himself.
I have not worked with Meghna (Gulzar) earlier either and with Tabu I didn't have any scenes at all. Tabu is one of my favourite actors and I would love to work with her. But, it was wonderful working with Meghna, Neeraj and in a limited capacity with Irrfan. I really had a wonderful time. My experience on working this film was fantastic.
How did you land the role of Nutan Tandon and who approached you?
Well, initially the casting director approached me and told me about the part and I instantly liked it and was very curious and then I read the script and met Meghna. I loved the script and met Meghna and she told me what kind of film she wants to make. And I was very excited because it is an unusual kind of film, its an investigative thriller.
So how did you prepare for the role; did you follow the case in 2008?
See, initially when the case came out I was not following it very much, but off course, one cannot avoid the details because it was such a high profile case, you know the basics of the case. And I had read few things here and there, but this script is researched so well and it is a well researched document. The script itself has all the three dimensions of the investigations that followed the Noida case. So in that sense all the research I needed for the role was in the script itself and other than that, I also spoke to Meghna. She really knows her material very well and she was very clear about everything that really helped me. So I relied basically on my director and script.
Do you think any other actresses would have played the role of Nutan better than you?
Don't know yaar may be, there are many good actresses who I am sure would have done the role better than me.
"Talvar" opened to packed houses at the 40th Toronto Film Festival, do you think it will have same opening in India?
I think that people are generally interested in the film and so far, there has been a very good response. So I think people will be interested in the film, I hope so.
"Rahasya" movie (released in January) was loosely based on Aarushi murder case, but the film failed to attract viewers. So what do you think will be the fate of "Talvar"?
I don't know. Judging from the response we got from the trailer it seems that people are far curious and eager to watch the film. So I can only hope that people will come and watch the film.
"Talvar" is releasing with Akshay Kumar's "Singh Is Bliing", so will Akshay's movie have any impact on your movie at the box office?
I hope both the films do well, but there are so many films releasing all the time and we cannot have only one release every week.
There has been lot of comparison with "Haider" and "Talvar" release date (2 October), what do you have to say about that?
Two actors – Irrfan and Tabu -- are there in both the films. Vishal (Bhardwaj) has directed one (Haider) and he has produced one (Talvar). But apart from these I don't think there is any similarity.
