MID-DAY (May 25, 2016)

Actors today spend a considerable amount of time as prep-up for a film before it goes on floors. And Radhika Apte is no stranger to this exercise. For her role as an agoraphobic (a person who fears open spaces) in Pavan Kripalani’s Phobia, the actress did a lot of research to get into the skin of her character — meeting doctors and patients apart from reading up extensively on the subject and gathering as much information as possible.

During her recent visit to the mid-day office, the actress revealed that she had turned to her surgeon parents for better understanding of the particular phobia. She says, “In India, phobias are not taken seriously, so nobody knows what it is actually about. I have friends who have panic disorders and I could learn more from them. My parents are doctors, so I had access to more information in that sense. My father told me about neurological aspects of it.”

She said the inputs from her parents and a psychologist friend was crucial in prepping for the character. “We had to make sure that we showed the effects of the phobia accurately. This friend of mine was, thankfully, there for me whenever I had something to be run by him,” she adds.