Radhika Apte (DNA; March 28, 2015)

Radhika Apte is on a high after her two back-to-back hits Badlapur and Hunterrr. She is quite taken up with the praise coming her way. “I guess what really worked for me was that the two films and my characters in them were so different from one another. It was just lucky that the two films came out together. We shot Hunterrr over a long period of time. We did a major part of the shooting and then stopped. We picked up the threads again after two years, completed the film and quickly released it.”

For an actress who has worked in films in seven languages, Radhika has a hunger to excel in unexpected roles. “I cannot see myself just looking pretty and dancing. I am sure that requires a helluva lot of discipline and hard work. But I’d rather channelise my energy to do something different, like I did in Badlapur and Hunterr.”

In Hunterr Radhika’s character had a murky past. “We are living at a time when women are not expected to be sati savtiris. My character in Hunterrr had a relationship and an abortion. This is a relatable person. I don’t know any friend of mine who hasn’t had sex before marriage,” she explains. And her quest for real characters continues. Says the actress, “I don’t care what the language of the cinema is, as long as it has a connect with real life. I am doing Leena Yadav’s Parched set in Rajasthan. I am also doing The Field about the Delhi mafia where my co-star is Neeraj Kabi (the monk in Ship Of Theseus). Then there is Mountain Man, the biopic on Dashrath Manjhi with Nawazuddin Siddiqui, which Ketan Mehta has directed. I got to play a Bihari rustic woman for the first time.” Radhika is also doing a couple of short films, one directed by Pia Sukanya called Bombairiya, another one by Sujoy Ghosh and a short film by Anurag Kashyap on forbidden love.

Radhika, who is married to a British musician, Benedict Taylor, is very clear about her views on nudity in cinema. “I have done a nude scene for an English film. In fact, I wrote an article about how strongly I felt on the subject of nudity. At the same time, I wouldn’t allow my personal space to be violated by any intrusive attention. Some time ago, somebody had posted a nude selfie on the internet claiming it was me. The girl didn’t even look like me. And the controversy died a natural death.”

Radhika adds, “I am here because I am passionate about acting. Just after I was noticed in Shor In The City, I left for London to study contemporary dancing. I came back feeling more empowered. I grew up idolising Aamir Khan. I had a poster of his in my room. Every day I said bye to it before going to school. I want to create a similar sense of self-worth in my career.”