Deepika Padukone: When you work with a director like Meghna Gulzar, you surrender

In the midst of a marathon promotional schedule for their film '

Chhapaak

', as director Meghna Gulzar and actor-producer Deepika Padukone sit down to have a chat with us, we ask them if, for a change, they would want to ask each other questions about the film and the journey they have taken together. “We might go on and on, you will have to tell us when to stop!,” says Deepika, as they sportingly kick off the Q/A session. Later, they share with us the common thread that they found in the acid attacks, the confidence and spirit of the survivors who are part of the film, and why it couldn’t have been set anywhere but in Delhi. Excerpts:

Meghna to Deepika: Were you ever apprehensive about the look that we put you in and how that would impact your fans or the audience?Deepika: At no point did I think of it from the vanity point of view. Did I think about my look? Yes, but I was thinking, ‘Wow, I have never done a prosthetic-heavy film before, what would that experience be like for me?’ Do I have to look like Laxmi? Do I have to look like myself if, God forbid, I had to go through something like this? Are we going to find a middle ground? I think those were the kind of technical thoughts, about the execution.
Who is the person who is going to execute the prosthetics? Are we going to get someone from India or from outside? But at no point I thought that how is the audience going to think of me or look at me, how is that going to impact my career, my future choice of films – none of those thoughts crossed my mind.
Meghna: I remember the first time we had your costume trial. And there was this wardrobe that had been laid out, which was completely mismatched. And you love to dress up, you are always so immaculately turned out personally also and even in your film, whether you are playing Naina or

Piku

. Here we had skirts which were of different colours, tops which were of a different colour, the head scarf was mismatched, and for a reason. The space she is in, she is not going to colour-coordinate…
Deepika: I think we got into finer details also like how is that fabric going to feel on Malti’s skin. Having just been through an attack and at what stage of surgery she is at, how is her skin going to react, what would that fabric mean, would it hurt? Would it be soft?

Meghna to Deepika: You submitted completely. There was a never a question, ‘Are you sure about this?’ We have picked up embroidered skirts from Janpath and we have put you in that. What was your first thought when you saw that rack of clothes?
Deepika: I have myself worn clothes from there. All these fancy designer clothes I wear now came much later on in my life. As a model, when I used to come here to Delhi for a lot of fashion shows, I have gone to Janpath myself, I have bought clothes, I have worn them. So I have been familiar with these kind of clothes. That is one part of it, but the other thing is, when you work with Meghna Gulzar or a director like her, you surrender. There are no questions asked. If she has a vision for a character and for a film, you go with it. You may not have that with every director, but I have been very fortunate that in many films I have done, I have been able to blindly trust my director’s vision. So, Meghna, why did I do this film? I keep saying this - because it was your conviction, it was your honesty that you came with for the very first time. I will never forget those moments, I knew I just had to surrender, everything else was done.

Meghna to Deepika: First time producer and actor simultaneously. Was balancing it easy? Well let's not say easy. How is it different? Deepika: I'm fortunate to have been able to differentiate the roles. I think there were parts where I was playing both actor and producer, but while filming, I was only the actor. Then when we finished filming, again, more of a producer because you're getting into the marketing part of it. Having said that, I mean, I think at every stage it's been a creative involvement. I have not turned producer for financial reasons. I think for both of us, it came from a very creative space of being more involved and what is best for the film and what is best for this character, also because you were dealing with such a sensitive topic, something that hasn't been showcased in mainstream before.

Deepika Padukone as Malti in 'Chhapaak
Deepika to Meghna: What was that one moment when you said, ‘This is it. I am committing the next three or four years of my life to telling Laxmi’s story’. Was it over a period of time that the voice got stronger and stronger in your head or is that one defining moment?
Meghna: It was a moment. It was like epiphany. One moment precisely. In 2016, it was that need to generate your own content, because fortunately for me, after a long time, the avenues of being able to make a film easily were opening up. I wanted to never be in a situation where somebody is asking you to make a film but you don’t have the content ready. In that, when I was scoping subjects in news articles, the issue of acid violence stared me from a newspaper, immediately I knew that it was what I want to do.
And the day I decided that, the next day I woke up in the morning and the silent desire that I had kept inside me for the previous three years, that that is the face I want to play Malti, I voiced it. I picked up the phone on a common colleague and said set up this meeting (with Deepika) please. And the response that I got saamne se was, ‘Are you sure?’ And I was like, ‘Yes, I am sure’. And two days later, I was at your home.

Deepika to Meghna: Why were you, then, apprehensive?
Meghna: I was not apprehensive. I was um, you know, by now that that's my personality that I, I will not voice out the good things. I will always voice out the stuff that can go wrong. Right? So I was not apprehensive, but it definitely felt like a long shot because this perception is there in the audience, even in filmmakers sometimes, and very wrongly so as I realised now, that actors who are successful and have found, I won’t say ‘comfort zone’ because they like to push the envelope in the different characters they play, but their strengths or their calling cards, they don't like to disinvest themselves off that. They like to keep their armour with them as they go from film to film. That is a perception. And so you think of going to Deepika, who has played queens and is like this, the minute you say beauty, she is almost the first name that will come to you. Right? And so because of that perception, you feel that will she risk it? Would she take this up? It's just that. And that morning, even that hesitation went for a toss.

Deepika to Meghna: Now this is a question I've always wanted to ask a director. When you are doing a biopic, such as this, would you as a director look for a person who looks like that character or would it be more exciting for you as a director to find someone who's just a really good actor who you know will bring everything to the table and then make them look like the character?
Meghna: I go with the visual first, because for me, cinema is a visual medium and your sense of sight is what is guiding your entire experience of consuming a film. If I have to take somebody who 60% looks like the character, particularly a real character, then what happens is that the external, fake elements, whether it is the fillers or the prosthetics or hair, that gets diminished. When I'm watching an actor with all that embellishment, it comes in the way for me. So I would not want to do that. I would want to be as close as possible, physically. The exciting part is when you don't have a visual reference, then you just go with a fabulous performer and you create a character. With 'Chhapaak', I've been fortunate that I did a bit of both because, we didn't make Deepika look exactly like Laxmi. You can see a few similarity, visual cues, but it's still Deepika which for me, as a filmmaker and as an audience who would want to go and see her in this role, is extremely gratifying.

Meghna Gulzar and Deepika Padukone
DT: Meghna, how did you maintain that balance between Deepika, Malti and Laxmi?
Meghna: Once I knew what Malti was, I think very organically, very naturally, it had a large part of Laxmi. Also when you're writing, there are parts of you that kind of seep into the characters that you're writing, right? Then the actor comes on board and when you're interacting with the actor, you will go and tweak certain things in the script based on the actor that's going to be playing the part. So with her, if Malti was already spirited, and a little vocal, I made her a little more vocal. That's from my side. 50% of the job the actor does as well. You know, how she has internalised Malti, how she has lived with the character and then it's her interpretation of it as well.

DT: Some actors get very involved with the character, others say, ‘Itna load kyun lete ho, isn’t the director handling that?’. When you are dealing with a subject like this, which model works for you?
Deepika: Sometimes the process might be slightly more familiar and sometimes you've got to put in a little more effort. With this film I think the biggest preparation for me was the emotional preparation. I'm glad we started that process almost six or eight months before we actually started filming. I needed that time to just internalize it. I needed the time to live with it. So that when I walked onto set, I wasn't acting it, I was feeling it. I think that is really when my journey began. Everything else was external. When you walk onto a film set and you have to play every moment in the life of an acid attack survivor, that's when the journey for me really, really began. And I think that's where it's sort of taken a toll on me emotionally.

DT: Meghna, though the incident with Laxmi happened in Delhi, could you have set the film in any other city? Meghna: I don’t think that I could have set the incident anywhere else because if you're doing true life, and if you don’t have authenticity, then you don’t have your audience and your film. Yes, the actual incident happened near Khan Market, near the road where the Metro station is right now. There's no way I could have actually gone there and shot there and locked down that space for three days, morning to night. So you take smaller liberties and go into say a smaller market to recreate. We fictionalise the names. Laxmi is not Laxmi, she is Malti, so you can take small creative, I would not even say liberties, I will say translations. But I couldn't have placed this elsewhere. Also, I don't know whether I should say this, but I genuinely feel this now that I'm seeing the film from a distance, that the Delhi in our film is very un-“film wala Delhi”. It is not the Delhi that you see in films.
Deepika: (cuts in) It is not the Imtiaz wala Delhi. I say this because he is a friend, Imtiaz has a different way of showing Delhi.

DT: Deepika, at your birthday celebrations in Lucknow, the four

acid attack survivors

who are a part of the film said there was no sense of discomfort on your face when you met them for the first time, which is unusual for them. This is what they remember of your first meeting with them; how was your experience?
Deepika: It was easy. We met at a restaurant for the first time. I had met Laxmi but I was going to meet these girls for the first time. I remember they walked in, I'll never forget their giggles, their spirit. They were ordering things left, right and center. They were firing the person who was bringing the food because he kept bringing the wrong order. This is my memory of them - spirited. I can't define it in any other way. Then of course, each one has a different personality. The one takeaway I had from all four of them was just their confidence and their spirit. It's amazing.

DT: Meghna, you have earlier spoken about how you wanted to show enough on screen so that people get a little uncomfortable but not so much that they turn away. So how did you manage that balance and was there any part of the story that you didn't show to achieve that balance?
Meghna: I don't think I shied away from anything, in terms of what was crucial to her story being narrated correctly and to do justice to what she had handed to me. I don't think we shied away or omitted anything. Yes, I was very aware that the film needs to have a certain aesthetic level. I was more aware that on this film than on any of my other films. Here we all had a heightened sense of awareness that the aesthetic level of the film needs to be slightly higher because the content is a little, it could be perceived as being difficult to palette.
Deepika: It is also unfamiliar. Unfortunately unfamiliar.

DT: When you spoke to the other survivors for your research, was there a common trait or common thread that you found in terms of the mindset of their attackers?
Meghna: Yes, there is. The reason for an attack can be anything. It's not really just unrequited affection or attention. It can even be a rivalry between two families. And because the girl of the family is regarded as this asset in a very strange way. Ki woh jo izzat hoti hai, laaj hoti hai ghar ki, usko tabah kardo. I think more than an act of disfiguring or violence, it was an act of repressing, of smothering. I will press you down, not just physically, I will press you down spiritually, emotionally, internally. It was that. It's actually a play of power.

Meghna says that she couldn’t imagine setting 'Chhapaak' anywhere other than Delhi
DT: You say the message of the film is hope. While there is definitely hope for the survivors, is there also hope that it'll change the mindset of the assailants? If someone wants to disfigure a woman’s face, will they stop if the sale of acid is stopped? There is a hope that if you are a survivor then you can come out stronger, but is there a hope that you will not be the next victim and it won’t happen with you?
Meghna: I would really like to hope so. I'll say that replacing acid with another tool of violence may not be that easy because of two things. One, how easily accessible it is and now how horrifically violent it is. Finding a similar tool of violence might be difficult. There is no profile of an acid attacker. Like you have profiles of serial killers, murderers, rapists, molesters because of the variety of reasons why it happens. There is no profile of an acid attack. It actually just takes a moment where an everyday, normal, sabhya person flips. I'm hoping that with this film, once you see the journey, you see the destruction it causes, not just for the person who's been attacked, but for her family, for her environment, for society in general, it may be a little bit of a deterrent, I hope. Having said that, I also feel that it's a lot of responsibility to put on a film.

--Sharmila.Bhowmik@timesgroup.com