When Sayani Gupta made Akshay Kumar cry on sets of Jolly LLB 2
Sayani Gupta, who made her Bollywood debut with Margarita With A Straw, is a movie buff at heart and respects her co-actors for their work. She believes the stars act nothing like “stars” and are only concerned about their work.
She has worked with the top-most stars in Bollywood. She played Shah Rukh Khan’s assistant in Fan, played a pivotal part in Akshay Kumar’s Jolly LLB 2 and will soon be seen with Katrina Kaif and Ranbir Kapoor in their upcoming film Jagga Jasoos. Sayani Gupta, who made her Bollywood debut with Margarita With A Straw, is a movie buff at heart and respects her co-actors for their work. She believes the stars act nothing like “stars” and are only concerned about their work.
Talking about her experience with Akshay Kumar, she told Hindustan Times, “He is a mainstream actor and frankly, I didn’t have any expectations. My part in the film required me to be in a space where I do not interact with people on the sets. Akshay respected that and helped in his own ways. I remember he was moved to tears when I gave the shot where my character lashes out at Jolly. Also, when I shot the suicide scene, Akshay was present though he wasn’t really required to be there. He supported and helped me through the most difficult scene in the film.”
About working with Bollywood’s King Khan, she said, “SRK is a very humble and normal and a very naive guy. I don’t think he considers himself as a star at all. Very honest about anything he does.”
She will be seen next in Ranbir-Katrina’s Jagga Jasoos. Talking about her experience with the Kapoor kid, Sayani said, “The way Ranbir is on set, he is very mindful of everything that is happening. He likes to know things, he acts like a filmmaker. He is very up to date with everything and very informed.”
When asked about the kind of roles she prefers, Sayani said, “There aren’t enough good roles written for women and the ones that are, go to Alia Bhatt and Anushka Sharma. All the good scripts go to big people. The parts written for women are not as good, probably you would agree.”
“I would love to do the kind of films Alia gets, but I guess I still have at least 10 films and need to continue proving myself before I get there,” she added.
She may have an impressive body of work that includes Margarita with a Straw, Fan, Parched and Jolly LLB 2 - but her parents are not at all excited. Sayani said her mother never wanted her to take up acting and doesn’t show much of an interest even now. “I grew up in a culturally-rich environment and I knew very early that I wanted to become an actor. My mother was very opposed to the idea. She saw my dad’s life and didn’t approve of the way artists live their lives. She had very rigid ideas about the professions,” she said.
“My mom and family keep me levelled as they are not super excited about what I am doing. She has pretty much no idea and she is not even curious. She takes it as any other profession,” she added.
Sayani even wants to do a masala film where she wants to ‘act coy’ and break into a song and dance routine. “I love watching masala films, I want to suddenly break into a song, do a romantic film. I want to do comedy. My part in Jagga Jasoos is quite funny. I am not sure what will remain of it, but it is a fun-part. I think I will do a decent job in comedy.”
Sayani further said, “I want to do all kinds of cinema. Hindi cinema isn’t the only one - the kind of work I want to do doesn’t happen in Hindi cinema. I want to work with Chinese, British American films and collaborate to different people. There is a certain kind of narrative in Hindi cinema, which is great and I would love to do it. But this is not the only thing I want to do.”
Talking about her future projects, Sayani clarifies she is not working in Imtiaz Ali’s next with SRK and Anushka Sharma: “I am not in Imtiaz Ali’s The Ring. I don’t know who put it on IMDB. My doctor sent me a message asking if it is a horror film and then I said I am not working in any such film.”
She also completed a British movie, Hungry along with Naseeruddin Shah and Tisca Chopra. The film is based on Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and written and directed by Bornila Chatterjee.
Speaking about being a part of the film, Sayani said, “Just working with such a splendid cast by itself was out of the world. Nasser sir in fact had come once to FTII when I was a student there as a guest faculty and I always wished I would once work with him. The fact that I’m working with him I’m such a short duration of my career is extremely rewarding. The shoot of the film was absolutely a learning experience for me to be around such talented individuals.”
Amazon Prime Video will exclusively stream The Hungry, an international co-production between Cinestaan Film Company and Film London.
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