Transcription
I think your perspective will change a little. Everyone has an opinion; everyone wants their opinion to be heard and accepted. Yes, where our thinking ends, their thinking begins. You can imagine the level of thought they must have had and done. There is nothing about it that is not entertaining.
Lara, as an individual, when you started working on your character, what was that one thing you focused on the most? Because this is based on a true real-life incident, it's based on, and it has many actual facts. But we take cinematic liberty with these things, and we have to change many real names. I was given about fifteen news channels and newspapers' names that I had to change. I had to speak these names very quickly, with great fluency and without stopping. And that, for me, was very difficult because we are so used to saying what the real name is. So I think for me, that was the most challenging thing.
Since this show is based on a real-life incident, to tell a story without losing the entertainment aspect of it, how difficult was it? No, this is a very high-octane story. There is nothing about it that is not entertaining, and it's a very intense story, a real-life story based on, you know, inspired by real-life incidents. And the way it's written is very, very fast-paced. And as many characters as there are, as many actors as there are in a scene, their synergy within the scene is also very impressive. So it is highly entertaining.
Jimmy, you said in an interview that the schedule for the show was 48 hours with no breaks, and no one complained about it. Was there a point when you just wanted to cry and grieve? Any particular moment in the series where your real Jimmy took over, completely outside your character? Sometimes situations arise where, you know, there's a race against time. The set has to be broken down; something else has to be put in its place. And many things happen where the logistics get a little topsy-turvy. So one has to be accommodating. During that time, we definitely felt what it must be like for those people who are in a war room for 100, 100 hours. So even though you are so low on energy, you are performing a very high-octane scene, you know what I mean? From that, you get an idea of what the condition of those people who stand in a war room for 100, 100 hours and do all those things must be like.
So, about the Balakot air strike, whose perspective will we see? Soldiers', politicians', or the media's? You will see everyone's perspective. You will see everyone's perspective, but I think your perspective will change a little because now you will see everything from behind the scenes. Until now, you were seeing in front of the screen what was happening, this is that, which you would have seen in other films too, on TV too, read about it. But behind the scenes was an eye-opener for us too when we read the script. It was like, "Oh my God, this is how it all happened." Obviously, the characters and all these things that happen, these poor people work so hard, do everything, but the behind-the-scenes people, their names never come to the fore. So many lives they have saved, they have won wars for your country, but their names, their faces never come to the forefront. That thing, as a writer, you have to fictionalize a little, that this kind of person might be like this, or whatever.
When the Pulwama attack happened, the entire nation was in shock, and this is very fresh in people's minds. How did you channelize your personal emotions towards creating an objective character? See, in such things, a person cannot remain objective. You know, you will always have your own perspective; you will always have your own emotions towards something like that. Some are more affected; some are less affected. Everyone has an opinion; everyone wants their opinion to be heard and accepted. But the characters we played on screen had to be objective because they couldn't think for themselves; they had to think for the country. And the decisions they made, the reason they took those decisions also came from a much larger perspective. So I think personally, having played this character, I taught myself this, maybe I experienced this myself because I didn't experience that one. When Pulwama happened, I had very strong emotions towards that incident at that time personally. But playing Manisha Sagal on screen gave me the opportunity to view it very objectively. Yes, where our thinking ends, their thinking begins. You can imagine the level of thought they must have had and done.
Usually, through series and films such as this, we try to recreate the cooperation. How much is fictionalized? Everyone knows what happened and what didn't. So you can't over-fictionalize the narrative. Usually, when we see BTS, it seems like filmmakers are having a lot of fun on set. But what was the atmosphere on the set during the making of this show? Was it a good atmosphere? It was fun, and it was challenging, everything at the same time. As actors, what is that one thing you try to completely unlearn when approaching a real-life personality? You have to take care of many things. I think, it's not when you are making a film or series on a real-life character, the responsibilities increase; there are challenges. If you have a reference point, your work as an actor becomes a little easier because you have a reference that I will stay in this zone in this way. When there is no reference point, it is more difficult because you have to create it. And in that, I feel that in our series, the writers and the directors had lovely references that they put in for all the characters, which brings out something different in them.
Lastly, so many patriotic films are made. What is that one unique thing, as a series, which sets it apart from the rest of the patriotic films or series? What do you see? I think patriotism, the more you feel it, the more your chest swells. I don't think it's not that you've never felt that, "Oh, right now I'm feeling patriotic." The next time it won't feel the same; it will be a different feeling. So it doesn't matter whether it's India winning a World Cup match, whether it is India successfully carrying out a strike like the Balakot strike, whether it is any incident that happens that has patriotic expands within you, it's like a soul expansion, and that's it.