Exclusive: Sunny Leone on playing a trained assassin in web series 'Anamika', working with Vikram Bhatt and more

Actress Sunny Leone will soon be seen portraying the role of a spy gone rogue in the upcoming MX Player action-thriller web series 'Anamika', directed by Vikram Bhatt. 

The trailer of the 8-episode series dropped on Tuesday and soon after, we caught up with the actress to speak about how she bagged the role, what went into prepping for the role of a trained passion, her equation with director Vikram Bhatt, takeaways from hee character and more in an exclusive chat. 

In the upcoming series, Sunny will be seen fighting goons and performing action sequences. When we spoke to her exclusively and asked how she managed to bag the role, Sunny told DNA, "Vikram (Bhatt) sir came to me and told me about the story, character, gave me a narration and told me about the show, Anamika. What I'm still surprised about is that he wanted me to be a part of it out of all the people that he knows. I was extremely happy, proud and thankful that he wanted me to be a part of this story and that he believed that I could do it and be Anamika. That is how the journey started. It was easy to say yes because the story was amazing."

Ask her how she prepped for the role, Sunny says, "We spent a lot of time on set making sure that every shot was correct. Vikram sir actually figured me out, how I function and how to get in my head. With knowing how to do that, he explained certain things to me...I'm an emotional person anyway, and so that would affect me and in that 'affect', we were able to shoot some of these scenes."

She added, "As far as the action goes, I love action. I was happy about being able to work with the fight master and Vikram sir who knows a lot about action and how to shoot it in a way that it looks nice. It's very fast-paced and has a very different style compared to what I have done previously."  When we further asked her if she trained how to use a gun for the action sequences, Sunny Leone said, "I have done different gun training in the past. For this role what was important was to keep training on was my kicks and punches. So, I spent time doing kick-boxing. This was shot during the covid times and so not a lot of gyms were open, not many trainers were giving training and all the other things that might be at your disposal, were not. But I ended up finding a small gym that catered in kick-boxing. So, for me, that best amount of training I could give myself was to prepare in a way so that at least my stance and how I fight and hold a gun, looks fine." 

During the conversation, when asked what secret side of her she would like her fans to know about her while mentioning that the trailer of the web series showcases that her character Anamika knows the dark secrets of influential people, Sunny jokingly said that everyone would have to be their own Anamakia and find out. She then added, "I am a very homely person. I love being at home. I think when you work in entertainment and you are out all the time, my favourite thing to do is to be home and watch digital shows."

READ: Sunny Leone falls prey to online fraud, claims PAN card details used to obtain Rs 2000 loan

On how it was working with Vikram Bhatt, Sunny said, "It was amazing. He is so passionate and caring about what he does and how he treats everybody. It is such an amazing feeling to be part of a project where there is a lot of love and care on set whether that's for an actor, technician, or his daughter who came on the sets. I learned so much from him on a personal and professional level including acting. You learn so much by also just watching him and he works non-stop. He really is an inspiration to all those who think that all these things come easy and 'no one's working, look at what they have and say oh they don't work as hard as I do'. Well, to them I would say that that theory is incorrect most of the time. When I would watch Vikram sir, he was working non-stop."

Talking about the unfortunate incident in 2021 when the shoot of Anamika was stalled by some men from the Fighters' Association who claimed that director Vikram Bhatt allegedly owed some money to stunt coordinator Abbas Ali Moghul, Sunny said, "I don't know all the details of what happened. I was told away to my vanity. From my perspective, it was some misunderstanding and everything was sorted out. There were misunderstandings on both sides."

Lastly, while speaking about the takeaways from her character, SUnny said, "It's a character that's unbelievable with her journey, what she's gone through in her past and how she got to be this agent and working under these people. There are not many similarities other than I only hope to be a bada** like Anamika in real life although, I'll never be that because I don't fight nor do I shoot guns. I think that's what the takeaway is...becoming something that is the complete opposite of my own character as a person and in life."

'Anamika' is being dubbed in Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. All episodes of the intriguing spy-thriller will stream free exclusively on MX Player, starting March 10.