Jubilee actress Wamiqa Gabbi: I was initially rejected for the role of Niloufer Qureshi

Wamiqa Gabbi is grabbing the audience's attention for her character portrayal of Niloufer Qureshi in Vikramaditya Motwane’s much talked-about Amazon Prime Video period drama series, Jubilee. However, in a recent interview, the actress revealed that she was initially rejected for the role, but was called again after the pandemic.

“In the beginning, I was rejected for the part of Niloufer. I told myself, ‘Obviously! Yeh thodi na ho sakta hai mere saath!’ Then after the pandemic, things changed and sir thought that I can play Niloufer and so, I was called again,” she told News18.

Wamiqa - who has also been part of films and series like Jab We Met, Love Aaj Kal, Grahan and Modern Love: Mumbai - added that she had never thought of working with Vikramaditya and Vishal Bhardwaj in the initial days of her career. She said, “I can’t even say that I had a dream of being directed by them. I love their films.”

The actress opened up about a project that she was supposed to do with Vishal Bhardwaj that didn’t materialise. “The same thing had happened with Vishal sir. I was supposed to do something with him before the pandemic. But at the back of my head, I kept wondering, ‘Yeh kaise ho sakta hai? This isn’t possible!” She revealed that her Jubilee co-star Sidhant Gupta was also supposed to be cast in the project.

Speaking further about Sidhant, Wamiqa said, “Sidhant and I’ve had very similar journeys and I personally relate a lot with him. It’s so weird that we were supposed to do a series together earlier but that didn’t happen, and we ended up doing Jubilee together, playing these beautiful and overwhelming characters.”

While talking about her character in the show, she said that Niloufer is a survivor who does not know how to give up. “It's her instinct to just find a way to make things work. Giving up is just not in the dictionary of her life,” she added.

While revealing about her preparation process, she said that she borrowed references from the actors of the 1950s and 1960s - particularly in terms of their body language, facial expressions and dialogue delivery.

Jubilee also stars Prosenjit Chatterjee, Aditi Rao Hydari, Ram Kapoor and Aparshakti Khurana.