Nearly two decades after Taare Zameen Par made him one of the most memorable child actors in Indian cinema, Darsheel Safary is still closely associated with the film that touched millions. But the actor says he is not trying to run away from that image — he is simply waiting for the next role that can leave a similar impact.

Speaking about growing up in the shadow of an iconic debut, the 29-year-old says the audience’s perception will only change with the kind of work he chooses.

“I don’t know what people think. It’s about the work that I bring to the table — that is what the reaction depends on, frankly,” he says. “Taare Zameen Par is that kind of film from which it will be difficult to break away naturally. Even today, people talk about it and there are discussions around it.”

Rather than distancing himself from the film, Darsheel says he sees it as the foundation of his journey. “Now that I’ve grown up, I’m looking at another such project for myself — something that makes me memorable for the next 20 years. It’s not about people not being able to break out of that image, it’s about what you are giving and what you’re getting back in return.”

The actor, who has been busy with theatre, says every former child artiste eventually waits for that one defining role that changes how audiences see them.

Referring to actors like Fatima Sana Shaikh and Sara Arjun, he says, “They gave their Dangals, they gave their Dhurandhars afterwards. Back then, they were familiar faces — you knew they existed. But when they came out with that one project, everything changed.”

Darsheel, who will soon be seen in an international project with Priya Mani Raj, also reveals that the past few years have been transformative. “It’s been an introspective journey. I’ve tried to understand why I want to be an actor. There was a phase where I did some really questionable work. But then I started working with filmmakers like Suparn Varma, Anand Mahadevan, Abhinay Deo and Subhash Kapoor. I was also busy with theatre. The closer I got to myself, the closer I got to acting.”

With web shows like The Family Man and The Good Wife, Priya Mani Raj has found a renewed connection with audiences across India. While she has long been a well-known name in the South, the digital space has helped her reach a wider, pan-India audience. Yet, her journey with Hindi cinema began much earlier — with Mani Ratnam’s Raavan.

When asked if she had high expectations from her Bollywood debut, she says, “Yes, I did. I was brought up watching Hindi films, so when I got an offer to do the Hindi version of Raavan, I was thrilled. I got to act with Abhishek Bachchan and so many wonderful actors like Ravi Kishan and Pankaj Tripathi. I was very happy. I didn’t have scenes with Aishwarya, but I met her during promotions, and she was so warm.”

She adds, “Honestly, I did think I’d get more offers after that. But I was quite selective. I got some offers that I liked and some I wasn’t convinced about, so I just kept them at bay. I wasn’t disappointed because I had my plate full with South films anyway.”

​Opening up about her initial journey, Priya Mani reflects on how she learned the ropes without any guidance.

She says, “When I look back at my old pictures or films, I’m like, ‘Why was I like this?’ But it’s a learning process. Nobody is perfect when they start out. Back then, I didn’t even know what grooming meant. I was 18 when I started out, and no one in my family was from the industry. I didn’t have a godfather to guide me, so I went with my instinct. I still do. I didn’t know you could have a personal makeup artist, a hairstylist, or even someone called a stylist,” she laughs, adding, “My peers had friends styling for them, and I just figured things out on my own.”

It was much later, she says, that she began to understand the importance of self-care. “It was only around 2011 or 2012 that I realised you could actually hire a stylist or get a designer to put things together for you. And after I started dating Mustafa (her husband), I learned to invest in myself — to look good, go for a manicure or pedicure, take care of myself, and look presentable,” signs off the Jawan actress.

When The Family Man premiered in 2019, it changed things for Priya Mani Raj. The National Award-winning actress, already a familiar name in South Indian cinema, found herself connecting with a whole new audience across India.

“Definitely, 200%,” she laughs when asked how much of a gamechanger it was. “I’m so happy, so fortunate that I got to be part of such a wonderful series,” says Priya Mani, who will soon be seen in season 3 of the web series featuring Manoj Bajpayee and created by Raj & DK.

In an industry where auditions were the norm, the opportunity to work on the show came to Priya Mani in the most unexpected manner. “It all began when Mukesh Chhabra (casting director) called me and said there’s a project he wanted to talk about,” she recalls.

“The next day, I met Raj and DK and they narrated the story to me for about half an hour. At that point, I wasn’t even sure if I was part of it. That’s because in Mumbai, the norm is that you have to audition and I was ready for that. After the narration, my husband said, ‘You idiot, they’ve spent 45 minutes explaining the whole thing to you — that means you’re doing it!’” she laughs. “And that’s how it happened.”

Talking about the audition process, Priya Mani points out that this culture didn’t exist in the South earlier. “Of late, they’ve started auditions, but not to the level of what happens here,” she explains. “Casting directors and agencies are just coming into the picture now. Until about five years ago, I don’t think there was anything like that in the South.”

She sees it as a positive change. “There’s nothing wrong in auditioning and proving your mettle. Sometimes people might know of you but not really know what you can do. It’s just showing them, ‘Look, I can also do this.’ There’s absolutely nothing wrong in that,” the actress adds.

Despite her long career, though, Priya Mani reveals that she has barely auditioned. “I have never really been called for any auditions. I went for an audition once for a John Abraham film, but I don’t know what happened to that. Maybe it didn’t work out and that’s okay. It’s a part and parcel of life. You can’t expect everything to click. I was just glad I went and gave it a shot.”

Priyamani is the newest industry figure to share her perspective on the ongoing debate around the high entourage costs in Bollywood.

The 42-year-old says that while the decision ultimately lies jointly with the producer and the actor, there needs to be a sense of balance: “I feel actors should be quite adjusting. We can be considerate, think about everybody’s situation, for that matter. Taking that into consideration, you can be a little flexible. We are here to work, and the focus should be on that. That said, I still believe it’s a personal choice and highly subjective.”

Speaking from her own experience, Priyamani notes that having a genuinely necessary team is what truly matters. She acknowledges that while some producers may have agreed to excessive demands in the past, there are others who will not always support or feel comfortable with the idea of having a large entourage.

“I can only speak from personal experience. I believe if you have a team that is genuinely required, then you’re sorted. There could be some production houses or producers who may say yes to such demands or would have said yes in the past, but there are also people who don’t agree to them and are not comfortable with it,” she says.

The actor, who is gearing up for The Family Man Season 3, continues, “For the longest time, I didn’t even know that, as an actor, you need or can have people who separately focus on you to get you ready for events or interviews. It was much later in my career that I realized this. And even then, one of my friends helped me with styling.”

Filmmaker Sangeeth Sivan passed away on May 8 due to a heart attack. Known for hits like Vyooham (1990), Yoddha (1992) and Gandharvam (1993) in the Malayalam film industry, the director had helmed comic capers Kya Kool Hain Hum (2005) and Apna Sapna Money Money (2006), among others, in Bollywood.

Few know that he had recently completed Blind Game, starring Arjun Rampal, Priyamani and Rohit Chandel. The crime thriller, revolving around a cop on a mission, was being readied for release in the next few months.

Blind Game producer Deepak Mukut remembers Sivan as a humble, soft-spoken person and a fantastic director. “Sangeeth was a gem of a person, and it had been a great experience working with him. He was an actor’s director, who gave his artistes the freedom to act the way they interpreted their roles. He was a fast director who shot quickly. His passing came as a big shock to us all,” he says.

Mukut says he learnt about Sivan’s ill-health only a few days ago. “We were in touch with Sangeeth’s family.”

Sivan had taken the crime thriller on floors in December 2022, shooting it across Mumbai and Manali. Mukut is heartbroken that the director is no more.

“Blind Game, which is a suspense thriller, was his last film and we were gearing up for its release in the next couple of months. The film is complete, including the post-production. Sangeeth and I had a meeting only last week in Mumbai, and we saw the film together. We discussed the promotional strategies too. It is sad to continue without him. We will dedicate Blind Game to Sangeeth.”

Arjun Rampal, Priyamani and Deepak Mukut

In April, we saw her as the supportive wife in Maidaan, and soon, we’ll see her as a contract killer. That’s quite a turnaround. Tell Priyamani that, and she grins, saying, “As an actor, you need to display versatility.” She is gearing up for the release of Quotation Gang, which offers a gritty take on the lives of contract killers.

The actor plays a ruthless gang leader in producer-director Vivek Kumar Kannan’s crime drama, also starring Jackie Shroff and Sunny Leone. It’s certainly a dark character after her positive parts in Maidaan and Article 370, but Priyamani is not one to segregate her roles.

“For me, it’s just a role and I can switch on and off, unless the director wants me to do homework on it. I am glad that with Quotation Gang, people can see another side of me after the positive characters that I played earlier.”

Black, grey, white—the National Award winner enjoys stepping into disparate roles. What she finds challenging, however, is being part of movies inspired by real-life events.

“Films that are a part of history like Article 370 and Maidaan are more challenging to do. These are incidents that have happened. So, it’s an added responsibility to tell them to the audience sensitively,” she reasons.

Last week, she began shooting The Family Man’s third season. After the second edition streamed, Priyamani —who plays Manoj Bajpayee’s on-screen wife Suchitra—reveals that she received hate mail from fans, who felt her character betrayed her husband.

“I must have done something right for them to hate me,” she smiles, before adding, “Suchitra is doing what she feels is right for her. In the second season, she balanced her family with her career while trying to save her marriage. People will relate to her more in the next edition.”

Maidaan went through so many delays that when director Amit R Sharma finally announced its April 10 release, Priyamani refused to believe it. “Amit Sharma said, ‘It’s releasing on this date, else I will change my name.’ I told him it was a challenge,” laughs the actor.

Jokes aside, she is glad that the sports drama, set in the ’50s, gave her a meaty role. While Ajay Devgn steps into the shoes of football coach and manager Syed Abdul Rahim, Priyamani plays his wife, who was his pillar of support.

“The character was [treated] by the makers exactly how they narrated it to me. Whenever I would ask them if any of my scenes were cut in the end, they said, ‘Not at all. You aren’t there to just establish the family. The family has an important role in the film.’”

The icing on the cake was working with Devgn, something she had wanted for a long time. “He is such a brilliant actor and what he has brought to this film and his character is phenomenal.”

With Shah Rukh Khan’s Jawan (2023) and now Maidaan, Priyamani has collaborated with two male superstars of the Hindi film industry. Not surprisingly, she cherished every bit of the experience.

“Ajay sir and Shah Rukh approach their characters differently. Maidaan’s set-up was a little serious. But off camera, Ajay sir would enquire about how the south industry functions, how the directors and actors are. With Shah Rukh, we got along like a house on fire. Every evening, he’d bring his guitar and music system out, and we all would jam. What each brings on screen is completely different, but both of them are phenomenal.”

Beginning with The Family Man, the National Award-winning actor has steadily amassed a new fan base in the Hindi-speaking audience in addition to her south audience. She says, “I feel grateful that the industry is seeing me as capable of pulling off these roles.”

Actor Priyamani, who has worked across industries and languages in the south, in addition to starring in Hindi projects such as Article 370, Jawan (2023) and The Family Man, feels that it’s time to retire the notion that actors from the south should be cast in Bollywood films only as “south Indian characters”.

“We are as good-looking as anybody else. Our skin type might not be as fair and sparkling white as the ladies in Bollywood, but I don’t think that should matter,” she told Pinkvilla in an interview recently, adding that contrary to common perception, actors from the region are equipped to handle Hindi dialogue. 

“They speak it fluently, even if the grammar goes a little here and there. But that should not matter as long as the emotions are being portrayed. I think now the thing of north and south should change. We are always Indian actors,” added the actor, who stars alongside Ajay Devgn in the upcoming Maidaan.

On facing stereotyping in Hindi films, the 39-year-old, whose first brush with Bollywood was the dance number 1 2 3 4 Get on the Dance Floor in Chennai Express (2013), said, “Yeah, sometimes, they (Bollywood filmmakers) will say, ‘Oh, because it is a south Indian character, we want to cast you’.”

Even though Priyamani dabbled in Hindi cinema in the initial years of her career, it is only in recent times that the Tamil actor has become a frequent face—be it in The Family Man, Jawan (2023) or Article 370. Now, the actor is ready with her next, Maidaan. She plays Ajay Devgn’s wife Saira in the biopic of Syed Abdul Rahim, who was the Indian football coach and manager from 1950 to 1963.

Director Amit Ravindernath Sharma’s sports drama may have Devgn and football at its front and centre, but Priyamani says the tender relationship between the protagonist and his wife resonated with her. 

“Saira is his emotional support and pillar of strength. She holds the fort when Rahim saab is not at home, or busy with his meetings and matches. There is a cute relationship between them,” she says, looking forward to the Eid release.

Until then, she is happy with the way Article 370, led by Yami Gautam Dhar, is faring in theatres. She is thankful to producer Aditya Dhar and director Aditya Suhas Jambhale for not only offering her the political thriller, but also building her character, Rajeshwari Swaminathan, a senior officer in the Prime Minister’s Office, down to the last detail.

“While offering the film, Aditya’s words were, ‘I want actors like you and Yami to do this film, not stars.’ When I heard the gist, I wanted to be a part of it; I loved the story. My role didn’t need so much importance, but they invested a lot of time in it. What also resonated with me is while the storm is happening on the field, Rajeshwari is calm and strong.”

While the preview of Jawan has made Shah Rukh Khan’s fans restless for its release, the superstar and director Atlee are working relentlessly to make sure the film matches the audience’s expectations. On Tuesday, Khan wrapped up the shoot of the special song sequence that sees him with leading lady Nayanthara. But it’s not a wrap yet for the action drama’s team. We hear the actor-director duo began the patchwork shoot at Yash Raj Studios in Andheri, on Wednesday.

A source from the production team reveals, “We have three more days of work left. On the cards is the shoot of filler action sequences featuring Shah Rukh Khan. The remaining cast—Vijay Sethupathi, Nayanthara, Sanya Malhotra and Priyamani—have long finished their portions. In the next few days, the team will finish the insert sequences, and Atlee can call it a wrap on July 21.”

The movie, which marks the Bollywood debut of Tamil filmmaker Atlee, relies heavily on special effects. The source adds that the VFX work is underway.

Going by the massive reaction to Jawan’s teaser, trade circles predict that it will have a stronger opening than Khan’s January release, Pathaan.

In 2013, Priyamani shared screen space with Shah Rukh Khan for the dance number, One two three four, in Chennai Express. A decade on, she stars alongside him in a full-fledged role in Jawan. Working with the superstar twice over is understandably a dream come true. Has she noticed any difference in Khan in these 10 years?

“He is a lot fitter now,” Priyamani laughs, before adding, “Not that he wasn’t fit then. In Chennai Express, we were in the same costumes for five to six nights, but here I got to see him in different attires. He looks amazing.” What has remained the same about her co-star is his behaviour. “He is so warm,” she smiles.

This may be just the year when Priyamani will make her presence felt in Bollywood. Besides Atlee’s directorial venture, the National Award-winning actor has a big-ticket Hindi film in Maidaan. Collaborating with Ajay Devgn and director Amit R Sharma was reason enough for her to say yes to the sports drama.

“I couldn’t believe my [luck] when I got the offer for Maidaan. Amit Sharma’s approach to Badhaai Ho’s story was so [heartfelt]. Maidaan too has its cute moments featuring Ajay sir and me. Working with him was a fantastic experience. He expresses so much through his eyes.”

She reveals that their conversations also touched on filmmaker S S Rajamouli as Devgn had signed RRR (2022) at the time. “I worked with Rajamouli sir in the past [on Yamadonga]. So, he asked me how Rajamouli sir is to work with, and how south directors function.”

Even as she awaits her big-screen outings, The Family Man star is currently focused on Sarvam Shakthi Mayam. The ZEE5 drama, also starring Sanjay Suri and Samir Soni, explores spirituality through the tale of a family. Priyamani says she was drawn by how the project maintained a fine balance between a documentary and a fictional series.

“People might think it’s a docu series, but there’s also a beautiful story about a family’s [spiritual awakening]. Initially, my character is someone whose decisions are made by her husband or father. But when she goes through this journey, she realises her self-worth.”

Having wrapped up the shoot of Quotation Gang, filmmaker Vivek Kumar Kannan is spending hours at the edit table as the film’s post-production is underway. Through the Priyamani, Sunny Leone and Jackie Shroff-starrer that revolves around contract killers, the director intends to show how a small desire can change one’s life.

“After reading Mafia Queens Of Mumbai, I thought of some ideas revolving around those who take contracts to kill people. Quotation Gang is a dark, witty movie that is disturbing in equal measure,” he says of the film that will be released in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada.

While Priyamani plays the central character, Leone’s casting comes as a surprise in the gritty drama. She plays Padma, a home-maker who has secrets of her own. Talking about her de-glam avatar in the movie, the producer-director says, “When I told her the movie’s concept, she asked me what I wanted from [the role]. I said that I wanted her [to be presented] in a different light from how she was depicted earlier. I didn’t want skin show for her. That was the first rule when we started the film.”

The project, based on a true story, has been shot across Kashmir, Chennai and Mumbai. Kannan is evidently impressed by Leone’s dedication to her work. “She doesn’t understand the language, but gives her 100 per cent to the role. She is a director’s actor, and never says no to anything. When I gave her more than five pages of dialogues, she learnt it fast. She was willing to sport a deeply tanned look.” 

The makers are currently divided between pursuing a theatrical or OTT release, and will soon finalise the release date.

The Chennai Express song, One Two Three Four Get on the Dance Floor, featuring actor Priyamani had become quite the rage in 2013. But we didn’t see her going all out in taking up Hindi projects after that. In fact, The Family Man was her next Hindi outing, six years later.

Ask her about it and she says she was “never away” from Hindi cinema to begin with. “I have grown up watching those films, actors like Aamir (Khan), Shah Rukh (Khan), Salman (Khan)... I was born and brought up in Bengaluru, and watched both English and Hindi films. I just took my time to proudly enter this (Hindi) industry,” says Priyamani, who has done films in multiple south Indian languages.

The problem, she says, lay in the kind of image that was being formed of her after Chennai Express. The National Film Award-winning actor elaborates, “Hindi cinema has a wider, pan-India audience. The NRI audience also watches a lot of it. I am glad I started my journey (in Bollywood) with Raavan in 2010, then Rakta Charitra (2010), followed by Chennai Express. After that, I wanted to take a break as I’d keep getting a lot of offers for doing similar numbers. I didn’t want to be like that. Then came The Family Man, and the rest is history.”

Maidaan is the 37-year-old’s next release, alongside actor Ajay Devgn, which has been pushed till now to ensure a theatrical release. And with people back in cinemas, does she think that the craze for web content will go down? “No, I don’t think so. Web will have its full fan following even after this. This craze for OTT platforms will never die down,” she signs off.

With success comes a lot of scrutiny on social media, especially if you’re in show business. And actor Priyamani has had her fair share of both. She has not only been subjected to body shaming, but colourism too.  ”When you are in the spotlight and gain a few kilos or lose a significant amount of weight, people notice. It’s a part and parcel of being a public figure,” Priyamani notes, adding that while she hasn’t seen colourism in the film industry specifically, she believes that social media is a nightmare that frequently fosters self-doubt.

“People on social media have talked about my skin colour. 99% of the population will love you just the way you are. But there’s this one percent who will tell you that your body looks fat and your skin looks dark,” rues the 37-year-old.  

Further, Priyamani adds that the film industry sets unrealistic beauty standards, which does not help the situation. She says, “In this industry, you need to look prim and proper all the time and you have to maintain your body, skin, hair and nails.” However, the actor admits that there are moments when things are difficult: “There are days when you want to hang up your boots and declare, ‘For one day, I want to be me’.” 

The Family Man actor believes it is critical for public figures to speak out against these issues in order to start a conversation.

And “live and let live” is the mantra that she wants everyone to live by. The actor says, “The idea is to let people be happy. If you’ve got anything positive to say, say it. And if you don’t, just keep your comments to yourself. You may not like me, but why do you have to pass on your opinion to other people and ask them to not like me?”

In her own words, Priyamani currently has her “hands full”. The actor is juggling OTT projects along with films in different languages. She has the Hindi movie Maidaan with Ajay Devgn, a Telugu film with Rana Daggubati, and a pan-Indian film with Jackie Shroff and Sunny Leone, among others, to look forward to.

The Family Man actor says she is happy that “even at this stage” in her life she is getting lots of work. When we probe her which stage she is referring to, the 37-year-old quips, “Generally, people say that after marriage you don’t have work, or you are reduced to doing character or sister roles. That’s why I said, even at this stage. [But] I got busier after marriage.” Priyamani, who got hitched in 2017, adds, “On the third day after getting married, I signed a film. I think my husband is my lucky charm.”

The actor adds that the industry’s mindset has changed as well: “They (makers) are accepting heroines who are married. They know that she looks the same and has physically maintained herself. It’s up to us whether we want to take a break or continue working. Even audiences accept you as you are.”

Ask her if, on a professional level, she has faced any difficulties in finding apt roles after reaching a certain age, and she says, “I don’t think age is a big factor at all, because we are all getting roles written for us, and not the teenybopper ones anymore.”

Christmas will bring much-deserved cheer to director Amit R Sharma and producer Boney Kapoor. The makers of Maidaan hope to call it a wrap on the Ajay Devgn-starrer by December 23, thus bringing the curtains down on the sports drama that had gone on floors in August 2019. The biopic on Syed Abdul Rahim, the late coach and manager of the Indian football team, was among the many films affected by the pandemic.

A source reveals that Devgn began Maidaan’s final schedule in the second week of November, after completing his web series Rudra: The Edge of Darkness. By then, the 16-acre set at Madh Island, which was damaged by Cyclone Tauktae in May this year, was rebuilt. “Ajay shot several football matches at the makeshift stadium, including the climax that traces the India-South Korea final match of the 1962 Asian Games in Jakarta,” adds the source.

Apart from the matches, some emotional sequences were shot with Devgn and leading lady Priyamani. “Crucial scenes have been filmed at Ballard Pier and the Turf Club in Mahalaxmi. Three additional sets were constructed across various studios in Mumbai where more sequences were canned over the past four weeks. The crew has been continuously shooting since November, barring two days in the first week of December when the untimely rains had left the makeshift stadium wet.”  

  

The director intends to complete the schedule ahead of Christmas, after which a few days’ patchwork will remain. With this, producer Kapoor will have completed five projects this year, including Mili, and Tamil films Valimai, Veetla Visheshnga and Nenjuku Needhi.

At a time when Hollywood is making strides as far as inclusion of actors of colour goes, it is nothing short of appalling when racism and stereotyping is passed off for humour in India. Recently, a troll video calling out the racism in a scene in the web series Little Things, in which the lead characters are seen typecasting actor Dhanush for his skin tone, went viral. In the scene, the lead pair’s friends compare them to actors Dhanush and Sonam Kapoor from Raanjhanaa, tacitly referring to the complexion difference between them, as well as their looks, in what was supposed to be humour.

Calling for an end to racism, the troll page also highlighted Dhanush’s achievements, which was amplified by several south actors. “There is a fine line between humour and being incorrect and wrong,” they stated. Soon enough, netizens joined in to discuss the repercussions of the engrained stereotyping of south Indian actors in content from other belts.

“We are living in times when we need to be mindful and sensitive while writing stories or dialogues. We, Indians, are the first to stand up against racism outside the country, but often fail to recognise what is happening here. We need to call out such scenes and discuss the need for writing sensitively more often,” says former actor-politico Ramya, who has worked with Dhanush in a Tamil film.

Dhanush’s VIP co-star, Amitash Pradhan, says, “This ‘silly joke’ is distasteful. I’ve noticed a pattern in Hindi cinema when it comes to portraying the south. I am a huge Rajinikanth fan and have never heard him say, ‘Yenna Rascala’ in any of his films. When we portray a Hindi-speaking guy in our movies, do we make him say, ‘Arey kya yaar?’ every few minutes? No, right? We need to be sensitive to things and write better.”

Making fun of someone for the way they look is one of the most insensitive ways of expressing oneself. Why should we be made to feel lesser for our skin tones, when we actually should be feeling proud of it? Earlier, there used to be that pressure to cast fair-skinned actors in the lead, owing to which many talented people lost out on good roles. But with the new crop of filmmakers, that has changed. It’s refreshing to see actors with more ‘native’ skin tones playing important roles and that’s how it should be. The inclusion should start from the south. You can’t ask a Hindi filmmaker to change when you yourself are making fun of skin tones. When you want to write a love song, you invariably end up praising the heroine’s skin colour. Such songs are there even in my films and I regret that. When there is proper representation on screen, there won’t be any misrepresentation.

Although south stars have been increasingly crossing over into Bollywood, every time that happens, there are trolls/memes about it. In recent times, actress Priyamani has been among the few South Indian actors who appears to have seamlessly transitioned to working in Hindi content, too. Priya tells us, “There’s nothing funny about the scene. Irrespective of what people say, by ‘making fun of him in whatever way’, Dhanush’s work is speaking volumes and that makes us all proud to be his fans!”

Pranitha Subhash, who’s been making inroads in Bollywood, after a successful stint in most south film industries, adds, “There are two sides to this dialogue. On one side, south Indians have been stereotyped as Madrasis and our accents and lifestyles have been mocked in the name of comedy. On the other hand, more North Indians are liking south Indian films and people like Prabhas are accepted as stars. In my previous Hindi film, Priyadarshan sir had an almost south Indian crew and we shot in Ooty, so it was like I shot for a film down south. Things are changing, but these stereotypes need to be broken sooner,” says Pranitha.

(With inputs by Sharanya CR and Lakshmi V)

It’s not easy to outdo the first season of The Family Man. But a week since the second instalment has dropped, critics and the audience have agreed that it is sharper than its predecessor. For co-writer and co-director Suparn Verma, the second season’s success is a personal victory. "I am just glad we’ve been able to break the curse of the second season,” he starts off. Referring to the common industry notion that the second instalment of any successful franchise rarely lives up to the expectations, Varma says the success of season 2 was important for him. “I gave my 300%. I have known Raj and DK since the time they first came to the city. So when they were trusting me with their baby - a series this successful - I didn’t want to disappoint them." 

Commended for drawing a thin line that separates heroes from villains in their story, Verma says they never envisioned Samatha Akkineni’s Raji as a villain. “The backstory and research into her character required us to understand Tamil Eelam closely, especially this Australian documentary (we watched) on the subject. The atrocities meted out to women in war camps is numbing. Most of these people are no longer in Lanka. They are in Australia, Europe but the core is they are people without a homeland, always striving to return to a place where they belong. These women soldiers when they spoke, their eyes were vacant and had a deadpan expression. Hearing their stories will give you sleepless nights. Samantha channeled that numbness beautifully. It was important for us to have Muthu - who speaks of their government, their hospitals, an airport, army, roads. It’s a community. This situation can’t be reduced to black and white. They see us as enemies and vice versa. We had to show both perspectives of what they are. For us, Raji and Sajid having that conversation on their way to Point Pedro was trying to tap into the philosophy of people growing up without a land. Their means are wrong but we see their dreams and hopes.”

A section of netizens criticised the makers for resorting to brownfacing to pass Akkineni off as a Tamil rebel. He admits to being baffled by the harsh comments. “People should check out pictures of those who’ve fought wars. They come out looking like different people who’ve aged far beyond their years. This wasn’t a beautification issue; the look is based on solid research. We wanted a Tamil speaking brilliant actor and who  better than Samantha? She needed to look weather beaten and lived in jungles.”

Recently, journalist Rana Ayyub tweeted about the series’ Islamophobic vein, pointing out that most Muslim characters have been painted in broad strokes of villainy. Verma fights the claim head-on as he says, “I will debunk that by citing our season 1 where we used that trope and turned it around by creating Kareem’s character. He was trying to make a political statement about lynchings based on what they eat. His death is a guilt Srikant carries in this season when he goes to meet Jonali and tells her he wasn’t a terrorist. We consciously addressed it head on.”

Varma says he and co-creators Raj Nidimoru, Krishna DK, Suman Kumar are mindful of bringing their politics into the writing. “We are primarily striving for authenticity more than balance. We are fine showing our protagonist as a flawed guy - he loses track of his own lies, his marriage is crumbling as a result. He has justified to himself he is right but think from Suchi’s perspective, is he? But flaws make you relatable and likeable. We don’t want to create a Ram-like ideal.”

And that brings up the show’s 'Katappa-ko-kyun-maara' question. What happened in Lonavla? “We all took a call and each of us had different reasons for not revealing. My reason was - season 1 ended with Delhi almost being wiped out and all people cared about was what happened between Suchi and Arvind. Talk about priorities! I don’t want to ever tell what happened there. That said, Suchi’s assumed cheating did invite polarising responses. The judgement towards Suchi comes from a place of sexism because people are justifying Srikant by saying - 'Oh he was fighting terrorists and saving the country.' The sexism becomes even more apparent when scenes like these come on screen. I can bet that if Srikant had cheated, no one would have stopped to enrage as much. We needed to show her mental state - she lost Arvind, the only friend she could talk to. She can’t talk to her own husband and is living in her own hell. She is raising a teenage daughter who blames her. So we see her as a lone woman, trying to keep it together.”

While the team of writers are yet to put pen to paper; the germ of idea of season 3 is already chalked out. “I would tell you but then I’ll have to kill you,” says Verma before adding that they’ve spent the week reading feedback, reviews and partying on zoom calls over beers and coffee. Well deserved, we’d say!