Sonali Bendre last played a full-fledged character in a Hindi film in the iconic Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003). She then took a break after becoming a mother. In recent years, she emerged victorious after battling cancer. Now, she is all set to return to the Hindi arena with Zee5’s web-series The Broken News.
During a group interview with Bendre, when Cinestaan.com the actress why she picked this show as her comeback vehicle, she said, “I wanted the character to have a strong voice and the story to have a certain meaning. I wanted hope and to play my age most importantly. I wanted liberation from that and I didn’t want to be trapped in not playing my age. So I feel this character ticked all those boxes for me. Also, the people you work with are very, very important.”
The Broken News is about two rival channels run by Amina (Bendre) and Dipankar (Jaideep Ahlawat). While Amina believes in reporting the facts, her rival is ready to stoop to any level to ensnare viewers.
Bendre said that she has been receiving offers and scripts over the years. “Touch wood, I have been lucky that way,” she said. “I am very grateful for the career that I have had. It has been because of the way I look. I am thankful that that has been there because it’s a visual medium.”
She added, “But as an actor after a point, you feel, 'Can I go beyond this image? There is more to me'. And somewhere I felt I was not getting that across. After I had a child and I had taken a break and wanted to come back to fiction, I wanted to come back with something that would kind of break the mould a bit. I don’t live in the past. I was done with that phase. I thought I had evolved as a person and I wanted that to come across in my work now.”
Movies are generally two or two-and-a-half hours long but a web-series can span multiple episodes. Bendre said that shooting for the long-form medium wasn’t an issue. “It felt like I was shooting for a long movie,” she said. “Otherwise the shooting process was the same; as today’s movies would be. For me, it was a change from the time when I was doing fiction. That change was exciting. That’s the reason I wanted to work with new people and younger actors like Shriya and Jaideep. I got to learn so much from them.”
The actress added, “It’s quite a lovely format because you get to explore various layers, which, sometimes, in a two or two-and-a-half-hour movie you kind of miss out on. The way the show has been shot is so real; the way the camera is moving. Here, the camera could suddenly sneak up on you from anywhere and that was the real fun of it. For a second, it would throw me off. It’s different.”
The Broken News stars Shriya Pilgaonkar as a young journalist, Radha. She initially works with Amina’s channel but gets lured by the success of the channel headed by Dipankar. The show also stars Sanjeeta Bhattacharya and Taaruk Raina.
The challenge for Bendre was returning to acting after what she went through recently. “I was scared because I was returning after so long,” she said. “Earlier, [even if] we had one page of dialogue, I would remember the lines. But after my chemotherapy, there is brain fog, so remembering the lines was a challenge. I had to adapt and find a pattern to handle this. Shriya and Jaideep were so at the work. I thought, God, they would feel I am so stupid.”
Looking back at her recent health-related journey, Bendre said that after going through what she did, she got a lot of clarity in life. “Suddenly it becomes very clear what matters and what doesn’t,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if we have something now and it goes away later. I could clearly understand the things that matter. I think there is a reason why certain things happen to you. So, lessons learnt from it but it’s time to move on.”
Asked whether she will be seen in more mainstream offerings after The Broken News, Bendre said, “Whether it’s mainstream or not, the phase I am in right now I feel I am more interested in what story I am telling and what character am I playing. If I am happy with that, I am fine whether it’s on the big or the small screen. I want to work with new exciting young voices. I want to narrate different stories and explore different characters.”
Directed by Vinay Waikul and produced by BBC Productions India, The Broken News will be streamed on Zee5 from 10 June.