Being a Part of 'Kaun Banegi Shikharwati" - LARA DUTTA

INTERVIEW

Being a Part of Kaun Banegi Shikharwati

Lara Dutta Interview

By Armin S.

Lara Dutta is one of those rare actors who gets comic timing right without looking like she is trying very hard. In this interview, I explore her character, comic timing, working in an ensemble cast, and whether she has to love her character in speaking to her about Kaun Banegi Shikharwati, a ZEE5 Global original starring Lara Dutta, Naseeruddin Shah, Soha Ali Khan, Kritika Kamra and Anya Singh.

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INTERVIEW

“We are not just bringing in comic relief but we also had to get the sibling bond correct.”

WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES OF COMIC TIMING AND COMEDY IN A MULTI-STAR CAST PROJECT SUCH AS THIS?

It’s extremely challenging, to say the least. When you are doing comedy in a scene where there are only two or three characters in the frame, it’s easier, because you know where each character is. When there is a large ensemble of actors, it really boils down to timing. Each line must land with perfect timing because it is a very easy hit or miss and it can go flat really easily. That is a very challenging aspect of doing comedy especially with a large ensemble cast, which I have had my fair share of experience with, doing films like No Entry and Housefull. In those projects, you are doing scenes with some great actors, be it Anil Kapoor, or Fardeen – over here, apart from Naseer (Naseeruddin Shah) sahib and Raghubir Yadav, who are really experienced veteran actors, you had four other women who had never worked with each other ever before. I was excited to work with Soha, Kritika, and Anya, but we hadn’t worked together before. That was an interesting dynamic. We are not just bringing in comic relief but we also had to get the sibling bond correct. We are also playing siblings who do not like each other so that makes it even trickier.

PORTRAYING SISTERLY “HATE” CAN BE TRICKY. SISTERS WHO GET ALONG – THOSE CAN BE EASIER TO DEPICT ON SCREEN. BUT SISTERS WHO DON’T…HOW DO YOU GET THAT RIGHT?

I think a lot of that boils down to prep work before we got down to the shoot. We sat down with our scripts, we had really well fleshed out characters, and our writer (Ananya Banerjee) has lived with these characters and their quirks in her head for a very long time. She has described them in such a way where you are reading these characters, you know them instantly. You know where they come from, what their back story is, and why they are behaving a certain way – what is that little niggling thing you can scratch and that will draw a response from that particular character. So our process started at our table reads – and we built those relationships as we played out those lines and scenes.

WHICH OTHER SISTER INTRIGUED YOU THE MOST, EITHER AS LARA, OR AS THE CHARACTER YOU PLAY, AND WHAT WOULD BE THE QUESTIONS YOU ASK HER?

Well, if I was coming from the space of Devyani (my character) asking any of my sisters, I think it would be Gayatri. Also, as children, they were closest in age, but they had obviously fallen apart as they were estranged. There is so much that has happened in their lives. In person as well, Soha and I are pretty close to each other in age. She is incredible in terms of a personality on her own – she is quirky, super fun, and super intelligent. We have had quite a few wine and coffee dates in real life. That friendship has spilled over to our real lives as well. We shot in a very stressful time, with a small bubble, with really no family there, in a way, we became each other’s confidantes and support system, so that really worked as well.

WHAT’S THE ONE THING YOU LIKED AND THE ONE THING YOU HATED ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER, WITH THE CAVEAT THAT YOU DON’T NEED TO LOVE YOUR CHARACTER AS AN ACTOR…OR DO YOU?

No, no you don’t. And I think as an actor, that’s the fun of it. You do not need to make your character likeable on screen. The audience also does not need to instantly love or like you. That’s the luxury of the OTT platform. The one thing I did not like was that she was extremely bossy. She is used to having her own way. She is a bit of a control freak. She goes off the handle when people do not tow the line. What I love about Devyani is that, for her, family has always been paramount. She comes from a space where she had to grow up overnight when her mother passes away. She stepped into a mother’s role far earlier in life and took care of her sisters when her father did not step up to the task. That’s what resonated with me the most.

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