Radhika Madan is pleased to be breaking the stereotype. The former successful TV actor has been working hard for her feature film roles. She’s been in training for four hours every day for nine months, bleaching her hair and acquiring a tan — all in the pursuit of perfecting the characters she portrays.
Internalising the character
Madan will be seen playing a village girl alongside Sanya Malhotra in Vishal Bhardwaj’s Pataakha releasing today. About prepping for her role, Madan said, “We went to the village [in Rajasthan], fetched water, bathed buffaloes, milked them, picked up gobar , made dung cakes. We learnt how to cook on a chulha. Being a Delhi girl and totally pampered by my parents, I had no experience of doing these things.”
Workshops with Atul Mongia and Vishal Bhardwaj also helped her get under the skin of her character, Badki. “It was tough for me to play the elder sister because in real life I am the youngest in my family. The other thing was to be Badki ; I looked like the character on the outside, I had the body language and dialect but I needed to internalise the character,” said Madan.
Pain management
Madan will also be seen playing the role of a martial artist in Vasan Bala’s debut film, Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota ( MKDNH ) alongside debutant Abhimanyu Dassani. The film recently won the Grolsch People’s Choice award in the Midnight Madness category at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Talking about her experience at the festival, Madan gushed, “When we were shooting [for MKDNH ], we used to speak about this film going to festivals and that TIFF would be the perfect one to showcase it. When it happened, we were really excited! There were long queues for our film’s premiere. Abhimanyu was nervous because he’d been to TIFF before. He told me that the audience is very responsive and they’d boo a film they didn’t like. Our film got a standing ovation. Many people came up to us and said that Hindi movies in their minds were always melodramatic and clichéd, so they didn’t expect this. We were overwhelmed.”
During the shoot, MKDNH faced some delays due to financial troubles until Ronnie Screwvala’s RSVP Pictures came onboard. Bala said that his actors had given their “blood, sweat and tears” to the film. Elaborating on that, she said, “While training, we injured ourselves. I injured my knee and Abhimanyu, his back. We’d get bruised, fall down. But it happens. It’s an action film you’re making, after all.” Madan also learnt some valuable lessons from her film experiences. “I learnt that it is okay to try different things. It is okay to not give up, during the delays in the film’s shoot. I learnt to push beyond what you think are your limits,” she emphasised.
Madan doesn’t play a damsel in distress or merely the romantic interest in either roles. Talking about better characters for women in Hindi films, she said, “Having these roles offered to me itself is a sign of the change. Roles are being written differently. We are in an era where the audience is very smart. They’re exposed to good cinema thanks to Netflix and Amazon Prime. Real characters are being accepted and liked.” The actor recalled being told off for having an unconventional face, “But I’ve done two unconventional films. A woman with the perfect height, figure and colour doesn’t exist. Only focusing on that is taking away from reality. Women are so much more. Unless the character is not strong, they cannot show real beauty,” she asserted.
