Y.Sunita Chowdhary
Seerat Kapoor is an attractive actor with a great screen presence. After Run Raja Run, she did act in many Telugu films but sadly none of them fared well. The movies failed but she didn’t as an actor which is why she continues to bag important roles. Well behaved, articulate and sincere in her work, Seerat this time takes up the challenge of donning the role of a Tamil Brahmin girl in Maa Vintha Gaadha Vinuma. Though the other two actors did good work in Krishna and his Leela, it was Seerat who stole the show with minimum dialogues and sarcastic smiles. She showed how an actor through body language can optimise output. There are a lot of expectations on Seerat and one hopes she lives up to it. In a chat with Klapboardpost.com, the actor reveals that she has almost wrapped up her Bollywood debut that has Tushar Kapoor and Naseeruddin Shah as her co-stars and will be announcing a couple of projects soon.
Big films didn’t get you the break as much as those streamed on OTT did, right?
I don’t know if we can differentiate between the movies that were released between the big screen and the OTT platform; The films were shot for theatres initially but got released on OTT due to the pandemic. There is grace of time for everything in life and all said and done, I do admit looking at my graph it was indeed a bit slower. The impact that people expected from me after my first hit Run Raja Run was big but another question I never doubted was the journey of mine. As an actor I can maximise the opportunities that come to me, some are in my control and some aren’t. Even today for me to be able to have a script like Krishna and his Leela, the character has been layered and now Maa Vintha Gadha Vinuma is all very good. My past work has helped me to reach this point, it might not have appeared as an immediate result to people watching but through my work I have grown as an actor and grown as a performer. I’m grateful because getting attractive scripts assure me that things are falling into space and gaining momentum.
Has this phase helped you in widening your reach to the audience?
In some cases it could be a different scenario but I look at it in a very positive light. I used the time to reflect on how I would like to go about my career movement, spending time with family etc. It cut a lot of chaos which we deal with in day to day life. A pause sometimes in this constant chase in life is necessary for people to question what it really matters. Because I was aggressive in choosing work that has chosen me, somewhere it worked in my favour to bag another film that has more audience appeal at the script level and helped me to live off characters that are more relatable.
Krishna and his Leela is by far the best role?
I would come back home and reflect upon how I can better myself the next day, the lessons I learnt on the set keeps me excited in this journey which is unpredictable in so many ways. In Krishna and his Leela, Ravikant left the character on me to design completely. That was refreshing. There has been a bit of me in every character I played so far. It is funny to say that I was attracted to do this role. The team was apprehensive if I can fit the character from the look point of view considering the roles I played in the past. Siddhu said they weren’t sure before I came but they were completely surprised. I would say from the narration I could just visualise Rukhsar already and every day I would keep in mind her mannerisms and how she’d carry herself. Same time she is a part of me and not all of me. That difference was important to put across. Ravi was a trusting director, his brief was the info he shared with me and it just helped me analyse the role further and what came in front of that is the result of the freedom he gave me to design it myself.
Lots of talking here unlike Krishna and his Leela?
I am excited here, there is so much of me as an actor to cater to. There are so many scenes in the film, a journey from the very beginning to the end. When she is not around, the character is designed in a way where she is always the talking point. It is very important to pull off the character with a lot of determination. The team was not initially confident with my look and curly hair. I had to dress up with a straightened look and bindi to give them that confidence and we did a scene and they felt connected with the performance. Usually looking the part is a key factor when you are being cast, because that takes care of the half of the job. It is harder to play a character which doesn’t have a visual connection. We did look tests with straightened hair, darkened the colour of the hair and a lot more. It depends on the story and what the character is. Is it a clichéd south Indian representation or is she a progressive girl but has a different way of living is something you will see soon. I don’t think the religion or the caste is not dominating the person she was, but there was so much more to her. She comes from a culture, however you look, she might look different but carries the values and traits and that is what you take back home. The focus was more on the character but we did our best to give her the closest typical Tamilian look.
Little more info on her role please
Apart from being a Tamilian, she is a college going girl. She is very driven, an achiever and focuses on her goals. She is not a regular college girl despite studying with students like that. She is very principled and disciplined that is appealing about her. The film is a romantic comedy and there is family drama, social media aspects driving the film. Primarily it is a love story between these two characters.
Your chemistry with Siddhu
It is a love story and there are all kinds of outbursts in the film. There is a lot of chemistry between these two characters. We received so many messages asking for a sequel of Krishna and his Leela, wanting more of Rukhsar and Siddhu. This film is all out and you can’t ignore them.
