Monica Dogra on working in women-led show The Married Woman: 'I have always been in rooms full of boys'

Monica Dogra talks about making a mark in showbiz, the need to talk about successful women and her digital debut in this interview with HT.

Actor Monica Dogra, who is best known for her work in films such as Farhan Akhtar's Rock On and Aamir Khan's Dhobi Ghat, insists that discussions around female-fronted projects need to keep going on, at least until the time that it really becomes the norm. Monica makes her digital debut with Ekta Kapoor's production The Married Woman, a loose adaptation of Manju Kapur's book by the same name.

Actress Monica Dogra poses during the screening of ALT Balaji's 'The Married Woman', in New Delhi on Friday. (ANI Photo)

Talking to Hindustan Times, Monica said, "In the privileged world, we now have conversations like 'do you even need to acknowledge that this is a female-fronted show'? 'I do not want to identify as that, I am just a director, or I am just an actor'. But, until we normalise women and their choices in our entire country, not just our echo chambers, we need to keep having these conversations."

She then talked about her own journey in showbiz, in which she has been shuttling between music and acting. "When I entered music industry, I was one of the only women in independent music. I went to plenty of stages where I was the only woman performing. I have been the only female judge on shows, I have always been in rooms full of boys. And then, I hear it should not be a conversation that I am a woman? Of course we need it, so that more fathers encourage their daughters to go out and reach out for their dreams. We owe it to the women who have fought for the privileges that we enjoy now," she said.

Monica also stressed upon the responsibility of art in this regard. "It is important for content creators, from TV, cinema and music; to bring stuff that opens up people’s minds. Art is a peaceful weapon. Even if we are able to change and open up one mind, that is enough," she said, adding that Ekta echoes her views on the matter.

About her latest project, Monica revealed she read the book only after she was done with all the script hearing sessions. "Respect where it is due, the book is worth something so beautiful, we (the show) stand on the same ground (as the book) but this (the web show The Married Woman) is not exactly the book. Those who are in touch with the book, will be surprised by the show."

She also said that shooting the show was a tiring experience, mainly because of the hectic schedule and the fact that her dialogues were mostly in Hindi. "One of my bigger challenges (while working on The Married Woman), was that my character shape shifts and in one scene, she is like 20 different people. Adding to that, (it was a) lot of Hindi. That was challenging. This is my first web show and I have never shot back to back. My films have been ensemble (cast) so I never shot so much for a project. It is a lot harder to do shows. A show where you are shooting 10 pages a day, with 6 hours’ turn around time. This was the most gruelling schedule of my life."

She added, "I must thank director Sahil Raza, he has been fantastic. I must share this, until the last moment, we kept bettering the show. Like, we are shooting tomorrow and tonight we are discussing how to improve. Even on the edit table, if there was something which we thought could make the show better or make characters more specific, we made all those changes. There were many times portions were re-written and re-shot."