Tanya Maniktala felt the mindset of women around her played biggest inspiration for Loot Kaand | Exclusive

Loot Kaand, now out for streaming, is the story of how a sibling duo gets pushed over the edge, leading to a robbery, which exposes a lot of hidden truths, including a guns smuggling that happened eons ago. Unwillingly, Tanya Maniktala’s Latika joins the ‘get rich quick’ scheme and finds herself right in the middle of things gone awfully wrong scenario. It is through that though, that Latika finds out a lot about her life. Talking about her character, the actor believes that the inspiration for Latika actually comes from the mindset of women around her. Wondering what does she mean? Also know what inspired Sahil Mehta and Gyanendra Tripathi for Loot Kaand.

Here are some excerpts from the interview to help you understand better…

Tanya, you are the face of romance, but the hard to please woman after Flames and A Suitable Boy. It changed slightly with Kill, but Loot Kaand is completely different here for you. So when offered the project, there would be a point where you would have asked the director what's going on in his mind when it came to you and your character. What was his answer?

I felt like I connected with Latika's character on a very huge level. And we share the same core because, I think for Latika, her family is of utmost importance. So I was very excited to sort of delve into this side of Tanya and showcase to the audience that, okay, this also is something that as an actor, I would like to kind of sort of explore.

And with Ruchir Arun (director), I think we went on this journey together of exploring Latika's character. And, obviously, we had a guide in the script, but from, like, building her up, and making her alive, I think, is what we were trying to do. So she's a flawed human being. But I think her motivations and her intentions are so true and so pure that, she finds a way to justify her actions. But, she understands the grace and she lives with the grace.

I think that is what Ruchir had to also key as a takeaway. Just remember that we all live in the grace. It's okay if you don't understand them, but it's important to be able to empathize with them. So, I think that was my biggest takeaway from Latika's character.

There are a lot of references for dacoits, but rarely ever any for women in particular. Where did you look in the case for your character?

We do not have to because I think she is one of a kind. She seems like a very ordinary girl, but she is a superwoman. And that is true for all the women around me, I would say, because I think they're capable of such huge statements that even they don't understand their full potential. They just need motivation. So I think my research was digging deeper into the mindset of the women around me because I think they've been the biggest inspirations. They're the strongest people I know. And, they hold capacity for so much more than they can think of. In Latika's case, she pushes herself to do it because she also has her brother along with her.

So as long as her intentions look true and pure, I think, which is the case for ordinary women around like me, I think we can push ourselves to any extent for the things that we won't deal.

Sahil, you, on the other hand, know this genre closely thanks to Farrey. So were these were there moments where you felt like things came more natural to you with Loot Kaand?

I would say yes. You know, because in in reality also, I would say, you know, everybody is struggling in their in their own ways, right? And, everybody is trying to be a better version of themselves trying to do something for their families. Even if I look at myself, Sahil is trying to do something for his family. So that is where I connected with Palash and, you know, the family angle, which is there is quite general, you know? And so that was the main connecting point for me. But sometimes, life puts you in certain situations where you need to decide your do's and don'ts, rights and wrongs. And, you tend to make wrong choices in life. So it's about that. The show is about that.

Also read: Best Tamil heist thrillers to enjoy on OTT - Mankatha to Irumbu Thirai

You and Tanya needed to be well coordinated for many scenes. Were there any challenges along the way? Because, of course, you both come from a different school of thoughts, have learned different things in life. So what are the moments that were challenging, and how did you deal with them?

Not at all. We come from different school, but we come from same college. We were in Shivali College, Delhi University together. She was studying, English honors and I was studying biochemistry honors. But the platform that we shared in college was theatre. We started theatre together. We did theatre together for a while. So that really helped. We were friends before the show, though we were connected. We kept in touch.

Loot Kaand gave us the opportunity to know each other more, and it was a great help. The bond that we shared, it came so naturally between Tanya and me that any scene where I had to, like, maybe put my hand on her shoulder or maybe she had to hold my hand or whatever. It came so naturally that it’s maybe the way I would treat my own sister, Tanya was also treating me as her brother. So it was a great journey. It was a great experience for me working with Tanya and, other actors.

Gyanendra, you could be considered the most senior actor on Loot Kaand in comparison to the other actors at least. So, was there an invisible pressure to outperform them all?

No, no, not at all. I don't know by what measures I would be, you know, termed as senior actor. I'm still pretty new and, you know, kind of, starting my career in, you know. And, no. There was no such pressure as such.

There was so much to learn from all of these actors. We haven't met before. We didn't work together, me, Tanya, Sahil. But I've seen their work, and I knew director, Ruchir, who is also my senior from film institute. I've worked with him before.

So, he was the person who was connecting all of us and introducing each actor to everyone. And when Tanya was not there or Sahil was not around, he would talk about them, their strength, how they're doing in those scenes and, you know, kind of prepping me up to come up with my best game. So that's how it should be. Everybody should gel together and complement each other.

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What was the reference point when it came to your character?

This is one of the characters which is operating from a space of revenge. As Sahil said for a family, that emotion is so universal. We all have families and, we all know how it feels. What I really liked about him is that he's got two faces. He’s a teacher but somebody else inside. And, it's quite a liberating feeling.

Anything special that you took back from the sets?

The team spirit that this entire production and actors had. It was a tough shoot, to be honest, because of the locations. Everybody knew that we're working for the script which has the potential. I would love to go back on these kinds of sets again-and-again.