Exclusive! Paayel Sarkar: I will neither contest nor campaign for any party in the election

By her admission, Paayel Sarkar has become selective about her films. “I started with mainstream films and I still love them. But as an artiste, I would love to explore other characters,” she said. After working on Hoichoi’s Hello Remember Me, the actress is back again with director Abhimanyu Mukherjee. Along with Bonny Sengupta and Priyanka Sarkar, she will be seen in Ahalya. The film will be released on February 23. In a chat, she talked about Ahalya, her selection of films, and shy she stays away from politics. Read on…

On working with Abhimanyu Mukherjee

While working with Abhimanyu on Hello Remember Me , Paayel learned about the project. “Years ago the writer Arnab told me the story. When Abhimanyu also approached, I thought it would be justified to work on this. I have been looking for layered characters and this one is just perfect. Moreover, during Hello Remember Me, Abhimanyu and I became friends. I love his writing. I saw him grow as a director. I wanted to work with him,” she said.

Also read: Priyanka, Paayel and Bonny in Abhimanyu Mukherjee’s psychological thriller Ahalya 

We need realistic female-centric films

Paayel who started her career 20 years ago is not looking for nuanced characters. “I started with mainstream and I love them. But now I intend to portray characters that give me that artistic kick. I think it is the right time to make female-centric films and series. It is a global trend and there is no point in lagging,” she said. But a lot of series are indeed female-centric these days. Elaborating on this, the actress said, “Here, female characters are often black and white – either a rebel or a victim. Decades ago Rituparno Ghosh made Dahan and we are done with this theme. Why do we have to make a rebel woman with a traumatic part? These tropes limit the scope of women characters. We want normal, realistic women-centric content. A powerful woman doesn’t need to have emotional baggage to be powerful. This is a problem. If Animal was made with a woman lead, nobody would watch it. Why? More often we would put the female protagonist to some pedestal or justify her strength. I was watching Queen Of The South. A woman is a drug mafia and she is a drug mafia. No apologies there. Like people don’t justify male characters, we should stop justifying female characters as well,” she said.  

Also read: Paayel Sarkar joins Ritwick Chakraborty and Parambrata Chatterjee in a horror film 

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'Will not contest' 

Meanwhile, Loksabha polls are just around the corner. In the last election, Paayel contested on behalf of the BJP and lost. This year, she has so far decided not to contest in the poll. “I will not contest this year. I will also not campaign for anyone. Without wearing any political color I can say a lot of brain drain is happening in Bengal. Young students and fresh graduates are stepping out of this state. This has to be addressed. Things need to be changed in terms of education and employment. Otherwise, we will keep lagging,” said the actress.