Part of the charm of Veere Di Wedding was the close to real-life relationship, which Sonam Kapoor’s character Avni, shared with her reel mom – Neena Gupta in the film. Gupta plays a believable single mother pining to see her daughter heading straight for the wedding mandap. An ever competent presence, Gupta is now excited about her turn as a pious widow in chef Vikas Khanna’s new film based on his novel – The Last Colour , the teaser of which was released recently.
The Last Colour stars Gupta and child actor Aqsa Siddiqui tells the story of the widows of Vrindavan who are restricted, by tradition, to touch or play with Holi colours. Gupta plays Noor, a widowed woman who becomes friends with Choti, a young tight-rope walker. Gupta describes playing Noor as one of her most fulfilling, challenging and exciting experiences as an actor and ruminates on what she has learnt from her character.
According to Gupta, Noor is an embodiment of strength and courage in the face of adversity. She teaches hope, resilience and generosity and fuels Gupta’s belief that, “If you get a chance to give to somebody, what you never had in your lifetime, then you should. You should try your best,” she asserts. Gupta standing in a white sari – arms outstretched, lips curled in a smile and pink gulal splattered on her face, is one of the most poignant stills in the teaser. Gupta shares a story, about her experience on set while visiting the Banaras location with a sense of wonder in her voice. Although she had no intention of shooting that day, as this was meant to be just a stopover, but before she knew it, she was in the middle of a colourful Holi sequence, playing and being Noor.
“When I wore my costume, it just came to me. I didn’t have to do anything. I just became that person. It’s very strange but it happened”, she recalls.
Spontaneity, she thinks, has been integral to her creative process and her director Vikas Khanna is all for impulsiveness and spontaneity. “He was totally involved. What I liked best was, he didn’t stick to the script. He improvised. He let me improvise. He would be shooting a scene, and he would see a location. And he would say okay, let’s shoot this scene here”, Gupta says fondly. The actor expects a positive reaction to the film from audiences at home too since she thinks that, “There is a lot of masala in it. It is not a bland film or a sad film or a slow film. It has a lot of drama in it.”
Gupta has three other big releases to look forward to, the first one being Anubhav Sinha’s Mulk which releases next month. She is also part of Amit Mishra’s Badhaai Ho expected to release in December this year and Dibakar Banerjee’s Sandeep Pinky Farar which will releases early next year.
