BENGALURU: Twenty-four-year-old Sreya Muthukumar is no stranger to the stage. But as she makes her transition to the screen with a new show, Muthukumar is excited about this new chapter in her life. Akkad Bakkad Rafu Chakkar, which is premiering on Amazon Prime Video, required Muthukumar to go beyond her comfort zone to play a role that is new-age. The youngster, who is shuffling between Bengaluru and Mumbai, plays a character of Kushi who is in a lesbian relationship and becomes a part of a money heist. Though many might think of the role as a bold character to pick for a debut, Muthukumar says she was, in fact, looking for something like that. “One of the parts of the script that I really liked was that no one made a big deal about her relationship. It’s just another aspect of her life,” she says, adding that she feels great that she got a chance to bring an unusual character to life.
Having been a part of a city-based theatre group, Theatre Lab, where she performed several shows on stage, she does admit that working on this one was different. “Acting for the stage and the screen is different. It was great to get some understanding of the art of filmmaking while doing ads but, of course, to be on sets for a month and perform different kinds of scenes was challenging,” says Muthukumar, who has been the face of many commercial advertisements like Bumble, Parachute Hair oil, HDFC bank and others.
Akkad Bakkad Rafu Chakkar has turned out to be a special one not just for her but for many of her co-stars like Vicky Arora, Anuj Rampal, Swati Semwal, Mohan Agashe, Shishir Sharma, Manish Chaudhari, and Sudhanshu Pandey.
The show was directed by Raj Kaushal, who passed away in June 2021. Muthukumar says it was almost like they felt lost since “the captain of the ship was not there’. Recalling her interactions with Kaushal, she says. “There is a scene where my character is in a bathroom and turns the shower on and breaks down. He told me, ‘Look you are wearing a saree and it is going to get wet and we can only shoot it once. It’s a very tough scene and if you mess it up, we have to wait for four hours to reshoot. I believe in you so, show us what you can do’.”
Muthukumar hopes that her coming-of-age character helps others women who are in same sex relationships. “There are many women who are in different kinds of relationships and have different desires. I don’t know if people are getting convinced about it being real, but I hope someone who is in a similar relationship in a small town, feels the same when they watch it,” she adds.
In memory
Akkad Bakkad Rafu Chakkar is directed by Raj Kaushal, who passed away in June. Upon the show’s release, Kaushal’s wife, Mandira Bedi, said, “It’s Raj’s pride. A story that excited him from the get go and which he executed with his gut. Because he is a soldier and a resilient one(sic).”