Actress Alia Bhatt is currently working on two films together, Kalank and Brahmastra. Her last on-screen outing, Meghna Gulzar's Raazi, did well both critically and commercially. The actress got immense appreciation for playing an intense character like Sehmat with much flare. When quizzed by a leading daily over the extent to which such characters impact her, Alia said it does in someway but she knows how to get detached from it.
Talking about the same, she told the daily, "I am sure they have an emotional impact in some way or the other. That’s why it is very important for actors to detach. Like any other actor, for me too, that downtime – which is usually between me reaching home, going to sleep and then getting back to work the next day – is very important. What I do during my downtime – for an hour or so – disconnects me [from that film world]. Otherwise, you end up living only that character. And it is difficult because [during the shoots] even when you break for lunch and go to the [vanity] van, you’re still thinking about a particular scene and what is happening [with your character]."
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She also said that Raazi was a different experience because she totally immersed herself in the character to the point that she started questioning Sehmat's way of thinking. She elaborated, "We shot it (Raazi) in one go and I didn’t have any downtime. So, at the end of the day when I would go to sleep, I was just too tired. I remember once I was sitting with Meghna and was generally talking about the character. We were not even shooting but I got very emotional and was like, ‘why does Sehmat have to go through all of that? This is so sad.’ It’s weird, and not normal. How can that happen to anybody? So, obviously, your reel characters do leave a bit of residue in your real life."
Alia has been consistent when it comes to balance a full-fledged commercial cinema and the kind of cinema which demands her to give more nuanced performances. While she has done films like Highway and Dear Zindagi which talked about tricky issues, she also worked in a colourful Dulhania series -- Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania and Badrinath Ki Dulhania.
Alia maintained that doing such out and out commercial films is also a big task for her. She said, "That kind of masala cinema is also not easy. Actually, nothing is easy but the grass is always greener on the other side. Understanding the layers [of a character] isn’t easy. I am one of those people who don’t like to ‘perform’. Instead, I like to feel my character and its intricacies, which is difficult. You can’t always feel those nuances. But as an actor, you have to believe completely in your part".
