Sanya Malhotra, Shruti Sharma and Sayani Gupta in Pagglait

It has always been about finding the right rhythm of her characters for Sayani Gupta, who has often opted to play unconventional roles. Be it Axone (2019), Posham Pa (2019), Article 15 (2019), Jolly LLB (2017), or her OTT offerings like Four More Shots Please! and Inside Edge—big or small the actor has played her roles with gumption. With Umesh Bisht’s Pagglait, where the actor plays the other woman, Gupta explains the challenges of playing a character that has often been ascribed as the villain.

Portraying the role of Akshana, who happens to be the central character Sandhya’s (played by Sanya Malhotra) late husband’s paramour, Gupta says, “[The audience] would have already developed a soft corner and invested in Sanya’s story by the time Akshana enters the film. To then play the other woman becomes tricky. Of course, people are going to feel, ‘here comes the villain’, but she is not the villain of the story.”

Explaining the context further, the actor adds that there is a history to the character. “They have a past together, but that doesn’t mean she has wronged Sandhya in any way.” Set to release on Netflix on March 26, the film also starring Ashutosh Rana, Raghubir Yadav, Rajesh Tailang, and Shruti Sharma, echoes the expectations placed on women in a patriarchal society.

Ask her if she is comfortable with the prejudices and judgments placed on actors and Gupta retorts, “As women, we are always being judged every day. But being an actor and cribbing about being in the public eye, or being criticised, trolled, which is the byproduct of fame and money, is not right. Then don’t be here.”