Recently Raanjhanaa came and impressed audience across the nation. It marked rise of Dhanush. But one character which gave us most of the laughs and tore us apart in the end was of Bindiya played by beautiful and promising Swara Bhaskar. Here is our exclusive telephonic interview marking growth of Swara…
01: Hi Swara, you hail from a progressive background. Your education at Miranda House and JNU must have influenced your growth as a person. How did acting came across?
SB: I have studied at Miranda House and then at JNU and was blessed to be taught by some very brilliant and inspiring progressive teachers who have had a very formative influence on me. I haven’t been formally trained as actor. I learnt Bharatanatyam from Guru Leela Samson. Acting happened at JNU with the student theatre group IPTA-JNU and under veteran theatre person NK Sharma at group Act One. As a dancer acting - abhinaya with dialogues interested me because dancing doesn’t require the performer to speak.
You can say I was seduced by camera. As a dancer there is a great distance between you and audience. Each gesture means something that needs to be interpreted. Then there is also the distance of language. Films are more intimate as a medium. I was excited by that. But frankly, I was always a very ‘nautanki’ child - film songs, Chitrahaar, dialogues. These things influenced me a lot. So after JNU I decided to fulfill my latent nautanki desires and, I landed up at Mumbai - CST with bag and baggage staring at the bustling city of dreams like the quintessential moment from films.
02: You have a theatre background. Theatre artists, with some exceptions, don’t find working in films as rewarding for the actors within. Tell us about your transition from stage to screen.
SB: I have done little amateur theatre in college. More sort of activist theatre. On stage, to be honest, I have danced more. Every actor from theatre will say that there is an organic connection when you perform live to audience. You get to live that character, grow into the character during rehearsals, travel that uninterrupted journey of the character during performance in front of a live audience whose reactions are palpable. It’s a whole different energy. As an actor, performing in theatre is far more satisfying.
Films, on the other hand, are all and all the director's vision. You might not get that organic growth as an actor. That growth is like homework for the actor. It’s not like theatre. Satisfaction lies in the final product, seeing yourself in 70mm, up close and personal and how audience feels about it. These two formats are not comparable. You should know what you are expecting. I love both of them.
03: Playing an important role in Listen Amaya must have been inspiring. How was the feeling of working with legends of parallel cinema - Farooq Sheikh and Deepti Naval?
SB: It was great. I would often joke with Director Avinash Singh that he bribed me into doing the film by saying that I will get to work with Farooq Sheikh and Deepti Naval. I feel privileged to work with such stalwarts, such iconic actors so early in the career. Funnily when I read the script I hated my character. Literally I thought Amaya was a horrid spoilt brat. Then I realized that’s where the challenges for the actor lies. As an actor I must reflect Amaya’s vulnerability. The audience will not be able to connect with the character unless you make it your own.
Farooq Sheikh and Deepti Naval are wonderful people. Watching them together at work was a learning experience in itself their craft, their humility. I was very comfortable working with both of them. The experience was thoroughly enjoyable.
04: Your roles in Tanu Weds Manu and Raanjhanaa had a very distinct feeling of Hindi belt. Even the little nuances, like the one in which Bindiya feeds with cows, are spot on. How do you prepare for getting the accent and behaviour right? Is there a method or instinct or you just rely on director's vision?
SB: Firstly I would like to credit writer Himanshu Sharma for creating Bindiya and her world. After all every scene and dialogue and nuance is actually his creation. And Aanand Rai who has given that writing vision and direction. My Nana (maternal grandfather) is from Patna and Nani (maternal grandmother) from Benaras. So I know the language. I know the places. I know that world. As an actor, I am very conscious of both language and body language. Amaya’s body language and vocabulary reflected an urban girl. Payal (in Tanu Weds Manu) was from Patna and educated in Delhi, so she had that element. Bindiya was an out and out small town girl, so her body and speech had those elements. I am a script dependent actor. I work hard on my scripts and pre-shoot preparation, then on set I try and improvise, play and stay spontaneous.
05: Across the platforms since your days in JNU-IPTA and Act One, what was the most challenging role you played?
SB: Funnily commercials are the most difficult ones. Your performance has to be so exact. In 30-40 seconds, you need to evoke so many emotions. The ICICI ad in the bookshop is my personal favourite. I am really lucky to work with good directors from the ad world. In films, the toughest part was my role in Aurangzeb. I had a very short time to create my world. Personally, I had no similarity with the character. Fortunately, I was in the good hands of a very talented director Atul Sabharwal. But my favourite part has been Bindiya from Raanjhanaa. I fell in love with Bindiya the moment Himanshu narrated the script to me.
06: As an actor what is your dream role?
SB: I am a greedy actor. I want roles that drain me physically, emotionally, spiritually by the end of the filming day. Suppose if Bindiya was the central character in a film. Talking about dream roles I’d choose Rani Mukherjee’s in Black, Julia Roberts’s in Erin Brockovich, Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot, also Anarkali’s character in Mughal-e-Azam. I would love to do a period film. I would like some bubbly roles also like Kareena Kapoor’s in Jab We Met. I want it all.
Team TRM would like convey best wishes to Swara for her forthcoming endeavors.
