When actresses play working women, are they true to character? We got women from different fields to tell us what they think of the roles some popular actresses have essayed in recent times...
An actor/actress’s role by definition is to play versatile characters. However, the biggest challenge an actor/actress faces is to play a character that draws inspiration from everyday life. Whether it was Deepika as an architect in Piku, Shraddha Kapoor as an upcoming singer in Aashiqui 2, Kareena Kapoor Khan as a reporter in Satyagraha or Sonam Kapoor as a physiotherapist in Khoobsurat. One thing all of them had in common — was the task to stay true to the character of a working woman. How well did they fare in that endeavour? We got women from each of those fields to share their thoughts.
Aruna Joshi
Architect
Whenever an actor/actress plays a role one has to do a deep study of what the profession is to understand it. There is a huge amount of responsibility to stay true to the character. However, this also depends on the theme of the movie. As far as Deepika’s role in Piku was concerned I believe she did justice to the role. The focus of the movie was the father-daughter relationship, and hence they could not delve too much into the nitty-gritty of everyday life of an architect. Besides, that was not what the story was about. I think they took what was relevant, and have cleverly woven that in the story. The high pressure and stress of being an architect was portrayed effectively in one scene where Deepika comes home and argues with her father for disrupting an important presentation only to update her about his bowel movements.
Rajnigandha Shekhawat
Singer
In Aashiqui 2, they showed that the singer who was professionally singing at live gigs regularly, freezes in a studio. I think the director didn’t quite understand how things work, because a studio recording session is way easier than a live performance. A singer can keep recording the same line till it’s perfect because no-one is watching, while in a live performance, you necessarily have to get it perfect the first time as there are no retakes. So it made no sense that a singer played by Shraddha, who was so impressive live, would freeze in a studio environment. The film was more about emotions and passion, and singing was a small plot point it seems, and Shraddha did a fine job playing a singer, given that she herself sings. It was the director or story-writer who seemed to misunderstand the concept of live singing vs recordings. Rock On!! had a better understanding of how musicians worked specially the dynamics of a band. There’s the scene where the band wins the contest and the music company is doing a music video for them. They make the lead singer the central character for the video and the others don’t like it. That’s a correct emotion to portray. People don’t realise that all musicians work equally hard to put a song together, but the lead singer usually takes away all the accolades and attention, I’m sure accompanying artistes would not be happy with the attention that goes to the lead singer. One never talks about it, not even in the live singing circuit, so seeing it discussed in the film was great.
Mamta Sen Chitnis
Former journalist
There were a lot of artistic liberties taken in portraying Kareena Kapoor Khan’s role in Satyagraha. As a reporter, you can never be part of a campaign as your job is to be an observer and report what’s going on. You cannot take sides and involve yourself in the story. It’s your duty to report both sides of the story and not pick one and highlight that as a story.
Hemakshi Basu
Physiotherapist
The frames showing Sonam working with a paralytic patient is very basic, it did not really show the intensity of exercises that these patients have to go through. Also, because the patient is adamant about not exercising, Sonam ends up exercising by herself. There are quite a few scenes where she is shown to be working out alone, while it’s important for a physiotherapist to remain fit, I think this bit was overdone. The good part is that they showed the bit where she helps boosts the patients’ morale mentally, something that is an essential part of working with any patient. Overall, the character portrayal was just about average.
Zahra Khan
CEO and editor-in-chief: Hauterfly, a portal for women’s fashion
I don’t think people remember Priyanka Chopra in Dostana for the character she played as much as for the way she looked in the film. She looked flawless as a chic magazine editor, and the film wouldn’t be the same without this “desi girl”. She’s a great performer, so she’s always going to do justice to a role, but there’s a heavy element of fantasy involved in Bollywood films. I don’t think any magazine editor or staffer walks around the office in shorts and stilettos, but it’s a Bollywood film set in Miami, so the styling is par for the course.
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