A good actor follows directions. A great actor improvises and gives inputs, even if it means cutting themselves out of scenes. Which is what Rasika Dugal did to Iraboty in Shekhar Home, the Hindi adaptation of Sherlock Holmes.
She asked the directors, Rohan Sippy and Srijit Mukherji, to show her sparingly on screen to maintain the mystery shrouding her character. “I loved her aura and the wicked charm she exudes.
She is not manipulative yet mysterious. That is the aspect I worked on,” says Dugal, adding, “I believe detective fiction is a genre that needs to be preserved. We have all watched Sherlock Holmes starring Jeremy Brett. I am also a huge fan of Satyajit Ray’s Feluda films; Sonar Kela is my favourite.”
From playing the headstrong Safia—Saadat Hassan Manto’s wife—in Nandita Das’s biopic Manto, to transforming into the scheming seductress Beena Tripathi in Mirzapur; from playing the demure Savita Mehra in A Suitable Boy to being the empowered Neeli, who convinces her partner to reclaim her womanhood in Qissa, Dugal continues to traverse the diverse acting spectrum. “I know cinema is a director’s medium and an actor is often perceived in a certain way because of the way they look, but as a performer, the stage is your canvas.
I am glad that I am not getting the typically miss goody two-shoes roles, and playing a femme fatale, a mysterious woman, or an avenger. I like to have fun with my roles,” says the actor, who was given the Diversity Champion Award at this year’s Indian Film Festival of Melbourne for her “bold” onscreen choices.
In her most recent outing, Dugal morphs into the composed Jesse Miranda in the comedy-drama Little Thomas. Set in the 90s’ Goa, the Anurag Kashyap production centers around a seven-year-old boy Thomas, who wants to reconcile his estranged parents played by Dugal and Gulshan Devaiah. The film recently premiered at the International Film Festival of Melbourne. “I liked the calming pace of the film, and the fact that it was a dramedy. It has the humour I had been missing in my filmography,” she says, adding, “I think filmmakers find it hard to associate women with comedy.”
Dugal’s process for choosing projects is driven by the aim of bringing the feminine gaze to the forefront through roles that prove women are capable of doing much more than they are given credit for. To play the seemingly ordinary Jesse, for instance, Dugal had to not just perfect the Konkan accent, but also learn to play the piano.
But, she is not complaining. The latter was, in fact, what sealed the deal for her. “Working on accents is something I’m drawn to as an artiste. Besides that, I truly liked Jesse Miranda’s love for music,” she says, adding, “Jesse is a simple person who is running a bakery, but music is her place of solace, something she is truly passionate about.
I got attached to her passion for the piano.”
Even as she acknowledges the role that Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light (won at the Cannes Film Festival) and Kiran Rao’s Laapata Ladies (India’s official submission to the Oscars) played in breaking the metaphorical glass ceiling, she insists that women in Indian cinema continue to be underestimated, and subsequently underrepresented.
“I understand that not all creative attempts work, but conversations in the direction of including more women need to happen,” says the actor who will now don the uniform as IPS Neeti Singh in Delhi Crime 3. Rasika Dugal is a woman with a plan, and she will make every choice count.