What attracted you to the role of Sanyogita in Prithviraj? How do you prepare for portraying a character from a different time period or cultural context?
We’ve all grown up with the story of Sanyogita and Prithviraj, and I think there was a character that I was very familiar with.As someone who was not a part of the industry but grew up watching films, historical figures, and movies around mythology have always fascinated me. So I was very excited when Prithviraj was offered to me, simply because I have always loved watching films about history. The fact that I was getting to portray a character that we read about in folklore and I remember reading in the Amar Chitra Katha was very exciting. So there was something very exciting about portraying princess Sanyogita, and of course, the preparation came with a lot of research. Understanding the timeline, understanding what was the director’s perspective, and what was his vision for the character. So it was a lot of research and a lot of prep just to play someone who is from such a different timeline, has such a different life. She’s a princess, and then her character evolves into becoming a queen who stands up for herself. So just keeping that in mind and at the same time understanding what my director’s vision is for that character. So I think it was a combination of all of this.How do you approach the emotional depth and complexity of these iconic characters?What do you hope audiences will take away from your portrayal of this historical or mythological figure?
As I mentioned earlier, she undergoes a journey from being someone very protected in her palace, dear to her father, to standing up for what she believes is her right – her right to love, to choose her life partner, and to stand up against her father to fight for her love. After that, once she’s married, she fights for her rights as a woman in court. So, I feel that there is a lot of maturity that this character had at such a young age. I was playing a character much younger than I was at that time. And this was my very first movie, so it was important for me to be able to bring those layers to that character, to understand that she has certain experiences, and our experiences are what make us, and that’s what our character development is. So, it was important for me to understand her character development and to be able to bring that across. Of course, there’s a certain innocence to her because she’s very young and she’s just a girl in love.
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But later on, there is a certain amount of frustration when she faces the world and realizes that things are tilted towards a particular gender, and there is a certain imbalance and certain hypocrisy in society that she fearlessly voices. She’s very opinionated, which is surprising for a woman at that time. So, I feel that all of that made her character very interesting, enduring, and very fun to portray. I think I only hoped that, being my first movie, audiences would appreciate the effort that I put into it. I did work very hard on the character, and we did have a particular point of view. So, I guess my hope was only that their takeaway would be that this is a certain version of things and this is a certain interpretation, and while we’re all looking at that, we’re also entertained and we also enjoy this different world that our director has created.
Can you discuss any challenges you faced in embodying the essence of the character while staying true to historical or mythological accounts?
History has always been open to debate; there have been different versions of history. Different writers have interpreted the same thing differently. So everyone will have an opinion, and everyone will have a different school of thought. So I think the first thing is to understand that we’re making a film, and a film is a director’s medium. And for our film, we referred to a book written by Chand Bardai. So, you know, we referred to the Prithviraj Raso. Keeping that in mind, I think it was very important to block out every other interpretation and understand that to portray this particular character, you just have to focus on your director’s interpretation and your director’s vision for this character. And at the same time, you know, I think the timeline, the fact that this is a time that we can read about, we can hear about, we can interpret it, but it’s not a time that we have seen. So, you know, bringing that into a contemporary world where we’re able to communicate with the audience, you know, speaking in a particular language that sounds, you know, dated in a certain manner, but also, you know, the audiences of today are able to understand that language and understand the communication between characters. So, you know, I think these are the small challenges that one faces.
At the same time, I think one thing I always say about my character is that, you know, as I read the script, I realized that Sayogita might have been from a different century. She might have worn different clothes, you know, be in a certain way, lived in a house with very different architecture, probably had different hobbies. But all those things are external. Internally, her battles were the same as what most women face today. And that made her character very contemporary and very relatable as well. So I feel like, you know, as an actor, to bridge that gap between what your director’s vision is, especially when it’s a historical character, historical figure, and to make it palatable for an audience of today where they are able to understand. So I think that bridge, you know, that an actor has to be, an actor has to be that bridge. And I guess that’s also another big challenge when it came to this role.
