Actor-dancer Esha Deol Takhtani will be seen playing Shaila Addagatla in Rudra: The Edge of Darkness streams on Disney+ Hotstar from March 4.The six-episode series which has been shot across iconic locales in Mumbai will be streamed in Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Bengali languages.
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Rudra is a remake of the successful British Netflix series Luther, an engaging and dark take on a cop’s journey of uncovering truths and enacting justice for victims of various crimes. Esha will be seen in a pivotal role and is thrilled that the opportunity came her way when she was least expecting it.
Over a Zoom audio call, Esha says, “Now that Rudra... has happened, I am beginning to think I should have made a move before. It was a thrilling experience to work with the cast. I credit director Rajesh Mapuskar for his brilliant work, preparations and for the outcome.”
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Esha was last seen in two short films Cakewalk (2018) and Ek Duaa (2021). “Ek Duaa was also produced by me because the storyline (female foeticide) was close to my heart. After that Rudra came my way very organically. As we shot for the series and saw the preparation that we all had to undergo, I understood the work that goes into making a series; it is like putting in the work for hree-four films.”
Talking about rehearsals and readings, the actor says it benefited the entire team when it came to shooting the actual scenes. “All the preparation made it possible for us to shoot a lot of portions in one day,” she said.
Does Esha miss the song and dance of movies? She shares, “I did a lot of that in movies and enjoyed all of it. With age, there is a certain maturity in me so the current work is a refreshing change.”
Though she loved the experience on the sets, she missed teaming up with Ajay Devgn for pulling pranks on others, she says. “That is one thing I missed, given the tight schedule all of us had.”