Tisca Chopra, the Hindi actor who popularly played the role of a mother who has a dyslexic child, in the 2007 Aamir Khan-starrer Taare Zameen Par, is all set to appear on Disney+ Hotstar with a thriller series Dahan – Raakan ka Rahasya. The series is scheduled to premiere on the OTT platform on September 16, 2022.
When faced with age-old superstitions and myths, one IAS officer sets out on a quest to find the truth in the face of doom. Chopra plays the role of IAS officer Avni in the series, which is a dark tale of myths and superstitions.
In an exclusive chat with HerZindagi, Tisca Chopra shared her thoughts on Dahan.
“The story is about the District Magistrate Avni's (played by Chopra) inner journey as well as what happens when she goes to a mystical place but a fantastic place like Sheilaspura,” she said. Chopra further explained how she believes in intelligent storytelling and the smartness of the audience more than ‘cancel culture’ or boycott trends.
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“The first thing that we can say is it's a unique set between science and superstition. You represent science and the place where you go that represents superstition, and how you will navigate the path between that. And it’s a fabulous role and mouth-wateringly good. My role is all kinds of interesting things. She's stubborn, determined, focused, and an IAS officer. She has the responsibility of starting a mining project in a place called Shilaspura and it is home to different stories where it is said that mystic things happen.”
“I think the preparation of an actor is to find similarities and dissimilarities. As an actor, I try and look for things that might be common between me and the character. In this case, maybe I'm stubborn and very determined as well. I am a lot more open than Avni but she is very layered. But you can’t figure from Avni’s face what is going on in her mind. She is a woman who I deeply admire. I am a fan of Avni Raut.”
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“Certainly, as compared to the late 90s and early 2000s when the roles for women had dried up in a way and it was all about the same kind of formulaic kind of films. OTT has brought about a lot of interesting content not just for women, of course for women as well, but also for men. Just look at the kind of actors that the OTT has thrown up – Jaideep Ahlawat, Prateek Gandhi. Shefali Shah was doing character parts and now she's front lining stuff. Sushmita (Sen), Raveena (Tandon) – all of these people are doing great stuff on OTT and front lining projects. And I think it's the age of actors.”
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“I think, after a point in time, you don't have to navigate competition, because people know what you can do and what you can't do. So, I think (for a director) to be able to see an actor and trust the actor, to be able to do something quite difficult is to break the stereotype. My interest is not so much in competition, and looking at the competition and talking about the competition. I'm more interested in telling good stories and hope that they connect with the audience.”
“I haven't done a love story. I haven't done a comedy. I haven't done so so much. Plus, I also want to work with international directors. So, I would say lots. My list is endless. I am very greedy.”
“The audience is demanding change. They are definitely and clearly telling us that they are not enjoying the stories or the way of storytelling in most of the theatrical releases. Maybe you say that they're boycotting it, but I think if they like a story then they won’t boycott it. So, I do believe that it is an indirect way of saying that something is not working. And what is not working is something that all of us filmmakers have to sit down and think deep and hard about. We are making a film to touch people’s hearts, connect with them in that dark hall, to see that magic on the screen, to watch the story.
So, I think whether it's OTT or whether it's a film, both are here to stay. But in newer forms and that's like anything else. The old goes, the new comes, and (so it) repeats. Now's the time when the old is going and the new is coming. We are right here, waiting for the new way of things, ready and prepared.”.
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“I don't think it's a different audience. I feel that our audience is very very smart. I made a short film called Chutney in 2016, which was a very clever story. It had a lot of gaps which required the audience to fill in, to deduce, to play Sherlock themselves in that sense. It became the most watched short film in the world because you do not want to dumb the audience down and direct them on how to think. You don’t have to do dil mein dard wala (heart aching) acting and storytelling, you can do very intelligent stories, do it well, do it with a full heart and I'm sure the audience will accept it.”
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Directed by Vikranth Pawar and written by Nisarg Mehta, Shiva Bajpai and Nikhil Nair, Dahan – Raakan ka Rahasya features paranormal occurrences in a quaint, rustic village of Shilaspura, also known as the ‘The Land of The Dead’. It also features actors Rajesh Tailang, Mukesh Tiwari, Saurabh Shukla, Ankur Nayyar, Rohan Joshi, Lehar Khan, among others.
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