Fatima Sana Shaikh on ‘Hunkkaar’: Women don’t often get layered roles

Fatima Sana Shaikh steps into the role of a fierce cop in JioHotstar’s recently released crime-thriller series, Hunkkaar. Marking her long-form debut, the show puts her character, ACP Jasleen Singh, at the centre of a brutal case of rape, where the accused is a self-styled godman, Baapji, played by Raghubir Yadav, and the survivor is a minor student, Meenu (Aneet Padda). Told with a touch of sensitivity, Hunkkaar sheds light on the scrutiny and vile judgement that a survivor faces after the incident, where she is questioned and blamed more than the accused. Fatima found the story important and intriguing in equal measure, and the cop’s character was something she had not played before.“It doesn’t happen often that women get roles that are layered and not stereotypical. Even if I play a police officer in the show, I am not someone who is shooting people down and blowing away cars. I liked that realism in the story and how it shows things from a wider perspective,” says the actor.Fatima brings restraint to her performance as she holds the burden of Jasleen’s past on her face. Even when the dialogue doesn’t give away details of her troubles, the heaviness in her body language hints at a deeper ache. She understood all of it through the nuances in the script. “As an actor, you can add things to the character if the director keeps space for it on set. But a lot of times, it becomes important to note down those nuances early on in the script. I believe in doing all the work before going on set,” she says.A woman cop is also a character that is seen abundantly on streaming, whether it is Shefali Shah in Delhi Crime, Sonakshi Sinha in Dahaad, Raveena Tandon in Aranyak, or Nimisha Sajayan in Babita Singh Reporting. Coming with similar shades after them, Fatima says that she doesn’t actively try to differentiate her performance. “I just look at my performance and how I can make it different from myself. I don’t want to be what I was yesterday; my performance should get better. If I start looking at others for my own performance, then the journey would never end,” Fatima says. Fatima Sana Shaikh as a cop in ‘Hunkkaar’ | Photo Credit: JioHotstar The difference in both presence and appeal is seen in the act put on by Raghubir Yadav, who plays a negative character, going against the actor’s charming, middle-class persona popularised recently over the years through TVF’s Panchayat. As the manipulative and enigmatic Baapji, Raghubir is careful not to demonise him completely. He adds a shade of humanity, which makes Baapji feel even more menacing. The veteran actor was initially scared to do the role. “But then I thought, why not? The troubles gone through while playing the character are what make it interesting. I had not travelled this path for long; I was operating within my comforts. I felt that this role would be a learning experience,” he says.Delving into his “arduous” process of understanding the negative shades of Baapji, Raghubir says that he likes to explore the context of a character’s emotion. “If we just go by what’s written, then we may fail. It is important to know how the emotions took shape in him, what circumstances made him what he is. There’s a certain satisfaction in that process: doing riyaaz to feel the emotions of a character and get closer to his soul. This is something like meditation,” says the actor.A similar complexity existed for Zoya Hussain, who plays the subordinate of Baapji, becoming complicit in his crimes by systemically enabling them. She followed the same process of backtracking the character’s life to understand what led her to reach the disturbing stage of immorality. “Nobody is born bad. We become what we do due to our conditioning. She must’ve wanted love and validation from her father, which she didn’t get,” Zoya says while reflecting on not judging her characters.“As humans, we have a sense of judgement of what’s right or wrong. But to play someone with some finesse, I cannot judge. In that case, I have to imagine that what the character is doing is totally right. But the audience will think it is completely wrong when they watch me and that’s how it should be,” Zoya says. Raghubir Yadav in ‘Hunkkaar’ | Photo Credit: JioHotstar Apart from the nuanced performances of the three, some of the grim tone in Hunkkaar is also set straight by the interplay of costumes and make-up. Wearing darker shades of clothes along with a long tilak on the forehead, Baapji exhibits fear in some way. Raghubir feels that the costumes help get into the mindset of the characters. “The moment you spot a colour, it influences your senses in some way. If you wear something that doesn’t go with the character, there will be some imbalance. Everything will change. As actors, our own senses react to how we are dressed and guide us subconsciously to act in a certain way. A lot of times, I have been given costumes of a different colour and it has put me off,” he says.Fatima agrees, noting the role clothes play in real life in creating an image of a person in our minds. “Everything that we wear has a meaning. If someone wears a thread, it will tell me something about the person’s faith. Similarly, when I wear a cop’s uniform, my body language and style will completely change, which will be entirely different if I wear a wrestling outfit,” says the Dangal actor.It is all of these combined choices, along with meticulous camera work, that make Hunkkaar stand out, even if it was released after some delay. On the personal front, Raghubir feels the time is right for him to watch the show. “I didn’t want to watch it sooner. I wanted to get out of that dark zone and watch it as Raghubir,” he smiles. Zoya adds, “There’s so much distance between what we did and what we will watch and it is nice to be able to see it with the excitement of a viewer now.”Hunkkaar is currently streaming on JioHotstar