Neena Gupta believes that Indian cinema has been experiencing a golden period for a while now. Content-based films with small and medium budgets like Article 15 are doing well commercially. Since producers are not losing money, writers and directors are being encouraged and enabled to make more such films. Gupta says, it was the success of Badhaai Ho (2018) and the appreciation that followed her turn as a middle-aged woman who suddenly discovers she is pregnant, that allowed her to participate in this period of change and growth. The film signalled a revival for her career, bringing in a flurry of new offers. She considers it among the most significant highlights of her career. “There was Saans at one time,” says the actor, referring to her critically acclaimed television serial from the late 90s, “And there is Badhaai Ho now.”
One of the roles that the film’s success generated was that of Sunaina Tripathi in Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, the second instalment in the Shubh Mangal series, and a film where she pairs up once again opposite her Badhaai Ho co-star Gajraj Rao. The actor describes her character in the new film as a middle-class housewife who will do largely what her husband asks her to do. But she is also “slightly Mother India-like,” Gupta chuckles. When a crisis arises, she is also the one who tries to save the situation and balance everything out. “I am a little like her,” she declares, when asked how she related emotionally to the character. Gupta explains that she too is orthodox in some ways and yet very fair as well as modern when it comes to accepting things in another. “I have both in me and this character Sunaina also has both in her,” she points out.
The actor describes the experience of working on the film as a “laugh riot” and speaks fondly of the 40 days of shoot in Varanasi during which the cast became like a family.
She also commends writer-director Hitesh Kewalya, who wrote Shubh Mangal Saavdhan as well, for his clarity of thought and direction and especially for his writing skills, adding that the film has just enough punchlines for it to be entertaining without seeming too excessive for its content. “Hitesh was very clear about what he wanted. He has written the script so well. It’s a little farcical also,” she says.
Gupta admits that the issues around homophobia that the film brings up are deep-rooted and not easy for our society to get rid of but she is also confident that the film will make a difference in how people and especially parents look upon homosexuality. “This is a very happy and positive film,” she states, admiring the way its two leads, Ayushmann Khurrana and Jitendra Kumar, have played their characters, sensitively and free of the stereotypes seen so often in mainstream Hindi cinema. “You fall in love with these two guys,” Gupta asserts.
With films like Vikas Khanna’s The Last Color , Gwalior and Nikkhil Advani’s as yet untitled project and web series like Panchayat and Masaba Masaba about daughter Masaba Gupta slated for release, Gupta has a busy year ahead. Reflecting on the big lessons learnt through the career highs and lows, Gupta says that she realises how important reaching out for work is. “I am trying to do it as much as I can,” she notes, while emphasising on the necessity of keeping fit, “So that when work comes [your way], you are able to do it.”
