Sexy. Sassy. Saucy. More than ever before. Swastika Mukherjee tells t2 about being at the top of her game — both in the professional and personal spheres — over Caesar salad and coffee at Cafe Swiss in Swissotel.

You are in great shape. What’s the secret?

Healthy sex! (Winks) I had to lose weight and tone up for Detective Byomkesh Bakshi (produced by Yash Raj Films and directed by Dibakar Banerjee in which Swastika plays Anguri). So I am following a very strict diet and I am working out too.

How was the experience of shooting for your Bollywood debut?

I have been extremely lucky to have a Bengali director in my Bollywood debut. I am not very fluent in Hindi. Dibakar would translate the lines for me. We spoke a lot about the character and that helped. We all know that Bollywood is very professional. The other thing I have noticed is that they give equal respect to junior artistes, something that is missing in Calcutta. Here, junior artistes are treated like trash and I have been part of films where they were not even allowed to use restrooms for three hours! They are not given any changing rooms and nobody cares. I have seen women changing on the street. But on the sets of Detective Byomkesh Bakshi, if a chair was pulled for me, a chair was pulled for a junior artiste too. That apart they pay a lot of attention to details. Even if the lip liner looked a bit smudged, it didn’t go unnoticed.

How was it working with Sushant Singh Rajput?

Very cool. He is a sweet guy. I was very stressed and was concentrating on my lines because things happened at such short notice that I didn’t get time for homework. The first two days were very hard and I thought I was going to faint from nervousness. But I was also excited because I wore only Manish Malhotra costumes!

You’ve worked with one of the biggest banners in Bollywood, and there are offers in Tollywood as well. Is this the best phase of your career?

Umm... the best is yet to come. For the past two years I have been thinking of working outside my boundary. I have completed 11 years as an actress in Tollywood and it’s not that I’ve stuck to doing any one type of role. I’ve tried so many things. I have experimented with my look, my body, make-up... I have played characters far older than I am. I used to get offers from Bollywood but they were mostly films that required me to do sleazy song-and-dance. Then I auditioned for Detective Byomkesh Bakshi and bagged the role.

You’ve signed a lot of films in Tollywood too...

I am doing Partha Sen’s Anubrata Kamon Achho? opposite Ritwik Chakraborty. I loved the script. I am playing a character who is in her late 40s. I will sport salt-and-pepper hair. A lot of people have asked me why I agreed to play an elderly woman. I know a few senior actresses who’ve refused to play my sister-in-law! People who are of that age don’t want to play their age, so I might as well do it.

You had played a mother to a teenaged girl in Roopey Tomay Bholabo Naa last year….

Yes, because I am a mother of a teenaged girl (Anwesha, who she calls Mani) in real life. I don’t think that just because I’m playing a mother, people will think I am an old woman. So many kinds of films are being made and people are open to watching different kinds of performances. Shabana Azmi, at the prime of her career, had played a grown-up Kanwaljit Singh’s mother (in Bhavna)! When I was already a mother I played a college kid and people watched that. I want to play characters that are different from each other. I am also doing Arindam Sil’s Ebar Shabor where I have a pivotal role. Both Ritwik Chakraborty and Abir (Chatterjee) are opposite me! Then there’s Subhadra’s Raag Darbari Kannada where Shafqat Amanat Ali will do the music and Resul Pookutty will design the sound. There’s also Reunion, produced by Sujoy Ghosh and directed by Arindam Sil. Mainak (Bhaumik) is planning a film which I want to shoot in London and he wants to shoot in the US. So the fight is on. (Smiles) And I may do another big banner Hindi film soon! (Laughs out loud)

You and Mainak seem to have the best actress-director chemistry in Tollywood…

Mainak is actually my sister’s (Ajopa) friend. That’s how I got to know him and then we worked together in Maach Mishti & More and life just changed. He is my pillar, someone I really depend on emotionally. He knows all my flaws and vulnerability and my ugliness. I hold on to him for everything. I have all kinds of relationships with him except the physical! (Laughs) I trust him blindly. If he tells me to jump from the terrace for a shot, I don’t think I am going to ask why. That chemistry shows on screen.

Mainak thinks you are the best actress in Tollywood right now...

A lot of people think that, that’s okay!

Do you also think you are the best?

I have always believed in growing. I have matured more, seen life more.... Now you can ask me to do anything in front of the camera, I don’t care. I like to prepare for a character. I watch good films, read good books… whatever I do in my personal space I always try to see what I can gather from there which will help me grow as an actress. If I am terribly sad for two-three days for a personal reason, when I recover I am like, okay, I can use it somewhere! While shooting for Take One (directed by Mainak), I used to unlock a lot of things from memory and incorporate those in the character. I know it worked and helped me perform better. In fact Mainak has taken a lot of things from my life. I told him that he was a thief! He has taken so much from my life and created Doel.

You’ve told us Take One is the most challenging film of your career….

Yes, most risky also.

Why?

Because our society is not ready to accept a woman who is open about herself in every which way. Once the trailer of Take One (due for release on April 18) was out, I heard the same things about myself that my character Doel Mitra hears in Take One after doing a nude scene for a film. A girl tweeted me that she would have committed suicide had she been my daughter! I have been judged from day one, but I don’t care. I will not do anything that makes me unhappy.

How did your daughter react to all these?

Mani doesn’t care. I read out the tweets to her and she said, ‘Are these people mad?’

How difficult was it to be Doel?

Emotionally, it was devastating. Besides, I didn’t have too many dialogues, half the film is silent. Doel has a deadpan expression most of the time. The only weapon was my eyes. We would start very early in the morning and the first shot always had Doel drunk to death, totally wasted. I had to disassociate myself from everything. At one point it became really stressful. There were times when I felt very morbid and even after the shot was over, I couldn’t gather myself.

Swastika at the t2 photoshoot at Swissotel’s poolside. Pictures: Pabitra Das

And how difficult was it going nude?

It was very difficult. I don’t want to say that I was cool with it because I wasn’t. Mainak and I had spoken about it for like three whole nights and for months before that just to make sure the scene looks aesthetic and that we get the censor’s approval. My only demand was to find a co-actor who was not from Tollywood.

Why?

Because every actor in Calcutta knows who I am. I didn’t want them to talk about the scene. I wanted someone who didn’t know who I was. Mainak found Ricky K. Nadal. He is a model in Delhi and doesn’t know much about Bengali films. He had no inhibitions, no baggage. So I prepared in peace. I bought the lingerie from London! And then we gave the shot.

Were you nude?

Yes!

How much of it is going to be there in the film?

Of course the scene has been blurred. But the uncut version will be sent to the festivals. We had to make the sequence hazy for the censors.

Have you watched Take One?

Yes, I cried a lot! Certain scenes made me cry. It’s a very personal film.

Aren’t you worried about being judged when Take One releases?

See, I’m sure of one thing that once people watch the film they won’t say the things they are saying now. I may be judged by a few people but I also get a lot of respect from people outside the industry because of the way I lead my life and not just because I am an actress. How many in Tollywood can claim that? People also say that they know how I bagged the Yash Raj film! I don’t believe in being good. I don’t try hard to be a good, clean girl. And what makes me so bad? If I say I love drinking, smoking and I am a sexually aggressive woman, how does it make me bad?

Personally, are you in a happy zone right now?

I am always happy! (Laughs)

Are you in a relationship?

I don’t know! (Giggles)

Are you dating a salt-and-pepper-haired director from Tollywood?

There are many in Calcutta with salt-and-pepper hair! I am always in love. (Laughs)

Do you ever sit down and think about why your relationships don’t work?

No, what’s the use? Nowadays I laugh over it. I think I become too serious when I am in a relationship. But my partners like being with a lot of other women at the same time. I don’t do that while I am in a relationship. There’s no dearth of beautiful women or handsome men around, for that matter. I never falter as far as commitments are concerned. Most of the men I have dated believed in come one, come all. I am not like them.

Do you feel all men are like that?

Actually, I have not dated as many men as people claim I have!

How many have you dated so far?

Very few! I am a disaster as far as relationships are concerned. I am not good at it. I can’t be good at everything, yaar! I am good in bed, not in relationships!

No plans to get married?

The moment I think that this is the man I want to spend the rest of my life with, they run away!

Kushali Nag
Is Swastika the best actress and the most candid star in Tollywood right now? Tell t2@abp.in