Trial By Fire’s Rajshri Deshpande: ‘We should showcase all shades of women’

Best known for her performance in Angry Indian Goddesses, S Durga, Sacred Games and most recently Trial By Fire, noted actress Rajshri Deshpande is playing yet another interesting character in writer-director Sudeep Kanwal’s upcoming film Privacy. The actress recently said that she likes to portray layered characters, and go through intense preparation, no matter how challenging these roles are.

Speaking in a recent interview with PTI, Rajshri said, “As an actor, I like layered characters, complex situations. I go for intense preparation for every character. It’s complex because it has a bit of grey shade and finding and creating that space inside you, and dealing with that kind of subject without any negativity and judgement is a task. I’m a professional actor, I study, and I try to do justice to it.”

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In Privacy, Rajshri narrates the role of Roopali, a distressed surveillance centre operator, who embarks on an investigation into unusual events that occur during her shift. The actress said that it wasn’t easy to play the character, and credited the director for helping her with the process.

Adding to that, she said, “Grey and black shades of characters can destroy you internally. For that, you need to prepare yourself well. It’s an internal process for the character which you are portraying.”

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According to the actress, she couldn’t relate to a lot of traits of her character in Privacy, but she believes in not being judgemental. “With Roopali, I don’t agree with what she is doing in the film. I would never follow her footsteps. But you cannot judge the character when you are portraying it. It is only (with me) for the time of that shooting process and you have to get out of it immediately.”

Rajshri feels that there is a need for more female characters that are “bold, flawed, complex and clever”. “We should showcase all shades of women, because there are hardly any films that are made, where a woman is a central character,” she elaborated.

Privacy also features Sandesh Kulkarni, Abhilash Thapliyal, Chhaya Kadam, Rushad Rana and Sagar Salunke as key characters. It recently had its world premiere at South Korea’s Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival.

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The actress believes that her work as an artiste should not just provide entertainment to people but also make them “something to think about, something to take back”. “Trial By Fire is that kind of a project, where you want to understand what’s happening. It was the same with S Durga, like you finish the film and you are still with the subject. So, such subjects excite me because I want people to remember the subject, and the journey of the character,” she explained.