Tisca Chopra has joined the growing bandwagon of actors and debuted in the digital space as Dr Mira Anand in Hotstar’s Hostages. On choosing to do web series, the 45-year-old says, “I think that web series are far more explorative in their structure and exploration of people. You don’t necessarily have to be perfect looking or larger-than-life. The person needs to look gritty, real and normal so much so that people can feel, see, smell or almost touch you.”
The series revolves around the story of Dr Mira whose family has been held hostage by gunmen wanting her to assassinate the chief minister. Best known for her appearance in Aamir Khan directorial Taare Zameen Par, it’s the first time that Tisca will be seen as a doctor onscreen. “The challenge with playing a doctor is not so much about handling surgery or familiarity with the instruments or medical jargon. But I think it’s more important to have a sense of innate confidence, a sense of deep calm that a doctor has because they deal with life and that’s their daily job.” She goes on to add, “How to get that quality of calm that a top surgeon has, that deep inner confidence that comes from years upon years, of helping people survive and giving them life back. So, that’s a special kind of confidence where you are very very cool. That sort of unflappable quality was something that I was really trying hard to get.”
Calling her character ‘spunky’ and ‘bright’, Tisca says, “Dr Meera Anand is unlike any other character that I have played and I doubt very much that I’ll get to play a character like her. She is stubborn and an excellent surgeon. She is at the top of her game, a shrewd reader of situations and circumstances. Her heart is absolutely at the right place. Her moral compass points north and that’s what makes her lovely for me because she will do anything to protect her family but at the same time she will not let go of her morals.”
Interestingly, Tisca does find some similarities between herself and Mira. “I like to think that I am a fairly collected and Zen sort of a person. I am also quite focused like Dr Anand but I am not sure I am as sharp as her. The writers have created a character that is very aspirational for me. I like her unflappable and ‘not giving up’ spirit’. I am resilient but perhaps not as much as her.”
The actor believes that doing a web series is quite different from doing a short film or a feature film. “It’s because you are practically shooting three films compared to a single feature film. You have that much more time to explore your character, see the various facets of the story and explore the character in various situations. While in the film there’s normally only one main issue that the character is dealing with, here there’s issue after issue after issue that the character deals with.”
Asked if digital platforms are posing a threat to Bollywood, Tisca is quick to say, “I feel only good films are now going to make the cut. The same tired, standard old formula is not going to work anymore. In that sense, the web is helping films become sharper and reinvent themselves and come of age. No longer is the audience going to watch a film just because you have big names in it. I feel that newer, edgier, racier, sharper and more intelligent content is going to be the need of the hour if you want a film to run. Web is definitely going to give Bollywood a run for its money.”