Kubbra Sait on the challenges of playing a transgender in Anurag Kashyap's Netflix series, Sacred Games
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; July 5, 2018)

The experience of working with director duo Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane aside, it was the promise of a role that has hardly been explored in Indian cinema that made Kubbra Sait greenlight Sacred Games. The actor, who will be seen playing a transgender in the web series that also features Saif Ali Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, says the lack of references for the part made it "the most challenging experience" of her career.

"Since there were no references, I went with my gut. One may assume that playing a transgender is different, but I'm simply playing a third gender. Why should it make my acting process any different," questions Sait, who did not flinch from going the extra mile to get into the skin of the character. "I had worn a prosthetic penis between my thighs."

Apart from perfecting the physical nuances, Sait says it was aligning with the character's emotional state that proved to be a task. "Cuckoo [her character] knows she can make anyone dance to her tunes; that's the kind of confidence she wears, irrespective of her gender. My journey of playing Cuckoo was not gender-specific, but emotion-specific."