Supriya Pathak Kapur talks about having starred opposite Hugh Grant

Supriya Pathak Kapur has donned many hats during the course of her acting career.

Her promising career that began with critically acclaimed movies like Kalyug and Mirch Masala also included a brief tryst with Hollywood in Gandhi and French cinema in The Bengali Night. It found its fitting culmination in her role of loveable dimwitted Hansa on the small screen.

She states that the latter is the most difficult character she has ever played, “Acting is strange, because you are impersonating another character and putting a lot of yourself into it at the same time. So each role has been equally difficult, but more so with Hansa, because I am nothing like her.”

Not many know, but in the movie, The Bengal Night, back in 1988, Supriya co-starred opposite Hugh Grant.

Ask her about the experience and she says, “My daughter gets very excited about the fact that I once starred opposite Hugh Grant, but I have to keep reminding her, he wasn’t ‘the’ Hugh Grant in 1988.” However, she admits, “He was just as charming even back then.”

Commenting on the regressive nature of television shows, she explains, “I think our culture is extremely progressive. For me it’s not about trying to put on the right clothes. That is not what I call culture. I think it lies in small things like respecting your elders, strong family bonding, and not speaking ill of others.”

She says that her role of Hansa is her most favourite role too. “I’ve had people walk up to me and tell me that ‘you make us so happy’. As an individual, I may not be like her, but I when I am playing her, I am happy being that pure.”