Natural Apte-tude

It’s the end of a Friday night, a week packed with promotional interviews ahead of the release of the psychological thriller Phobia , and Radhika Apte still has to wrap up a couple more before she can give me time. And when she does, at Mumbai’s JW Marriott, Juhu, it’s with a bright smile, and just one question: “Hey, are you going to take photographs? No? Great!” She unceremoniously pulls out her false eyelashes, kicks off her sneakers and plants herself comfortably on the couch for our interview.

It’s this unassuming air, coupled with talent, that has endeared her to fans and critics alike this past year. More than a decade after she made her acting debut, the 30-year-old seems to have finally arrived. Despite having acted in movies such as Shor in the City , Apte stepped into national limelight only with Sujoy Ghosh’s supernatural thriller Ahalya , a 14-minute short film that has amassed over five million views on YouTube. A subversive take on the morality tale of Ahalya from Ramayana, Apte played a nubile young wife who seduces other men with the connivance of her elderly husband. After winning performances in 2015’s Badlapur , Manjhi — The Mountain Man and Hunterrr , she has become Bollywood’s new It-Girl and social-media darling.

With 11 releases in 2015, including the Malayalam Haram and Telugu Lion , a TV series in Bengali ( Stories by Rabindranath Tagore: Chokher Bali ), Apte has catapulted into the big league, “on her way to stardom, whether she likes it or not”, as one news article put it.

Barring requests for selfies from people not familiar with her eclectic body of work, she does like it. Fame is incidental, beyond a point. “I am on social media to connect with my fans, but when I’m out on the streets, I don’t even wear make-up. I’m in my chappals, on my own, and I like that.”

The upshot of this newfound appreciation is the high-profile offers she’s getting. Among her upcoming films, three are in Hindi — Leena Yadav’s Parched , the US-India co-production Bombairiya , and an Indo-British production; and two in Tamil — Ula and Kabali , the latter opposite superstar Rajinikanth.

Hailing from Pune, Apte studied economics and mathematics in college, and then started working with Mohit Takalkar’s Marathi theatre group, Aasakta Kalamanch. Rahul Bose saw her perform and recommended her for her first Bengali film, Antaheen (2009), with Bose, Aparna Sen and Sharmila Tagore. Since then, she has been active in shorts, features and regional cinema in Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam, and Telugu. While it is an impressive skill-set to boast of, her diverse roles make her difficult to be categorised as either indie or mainstream — she’s dabbled in both, and everything in between.

According to her friend, director and long-time collaborator Anurag Kashyap, Apte has no wish to be in the Bollywood rat race. “Radhika is not somebody who thinks strategically, she’s not in the number-crunching game. Her only concern is how to be a better actor,” he says. Kashyap has seen her come a long way, right from when she was in college and auditioned (unsuccessfully) for his cult film Dev D .

Apte does seem to have meandered through her career with one unflinching purpose — to hone her craft. Soon after working in Ekta Kapoor’s Shor in the City (2011), she left for London to do a one-year course in contemporary dance and release therapy from the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. “It was one of the best years of my life. Studying a dance form through analysis of physical movement and actually exploring it through your body has been tremendously helpful,” she says.

Her restless energy and unbridled curiosity lead Kashyap to draw parallels with Shah Rukh Khan. Apte, too, confesses to following her passions without a long-term plan. “When I was really young, I was obsessed with Bollywood. Then I got exposed to world cinema, and I wanted to be a part of it. Then I was exposed to theatre and I only wanted to do theatre. I started doing martial arts, and then I was a Kathak dancer, and then I started learning contemporary dance of India, and then I went to London to study that.” It was after she returned to India, she realised that in front of the camera was where she wanted to be.

And, according to Ghosh, the writer-director of Ahalya , that is where she belonged too. “She doesn’t take any time to prepare for her role, she just jumps right into the character — she is so spontaneous, I have no clue how she does it!” In Phobia , where she plays a person with agoraphobia (fear of open spaces), Apte certainly seems to have put in the hours and comes out in top form. It’s an important film, her first solo-lead in Hindi, and she appears in almost every frame.

“I did quite a lot of research for Phobia because it’s a very sensitive topic, so I couldn’t have just faked it. I knew about phobias — and especially panic disorders — for a long time. I read a lot for the film, I met a psychologist friend of mine who helped me throughout. My parents [who are doctors] really helped me understand the condition. I saw a lot of videos of panic attacks, which helped me connect the neurological aspects to the physical manifestation of them,” she says.

Pavan Kripalani, Phobia ’s director, cast her on the strength of her short films. “I needed somebody who could carry the entire weight of the film on her shoulders. I’d seen her acting prowess in her short films and I thought, if that’s what she can do in 20 minutes, what can she do in a whole feature!” he says.  It seems to have paid off. All national reviews of Phobia have Apte in the headlines — “Radhika Apte doesn’t put a foot wrong”, “Radhika Apte is in knockout mode”, “Radhika Apte to the rescue” and so on.

“We spoke a lot about the film, and the character she plays in it. But when it comes to acting, it is a crime to rehearse with her — her spontaneity is so effective, you just want to let her go,” shares Kripalani. “She is very open and collaborative, so uninhibited with her mind, body and soul — these qualities are assets to any director.”

Apte’s other directors, too, equally vouch for her creative process and bindaas attitude. Kashyap, who will be directing her in his next full-length feature, Giddy , calls her “the female version of Nawazuddin Siddiqui — these are the only two actors in the world that I can do absolutely anything with.” Leena Yadav, the director of Parched , which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival 2015, defines Apte’s craft as symbolic of a very new-age performance — a performance that doesn’t appear as one. “She’s always trying to find the pulse of the character that isn’t very obvious, by going beyond the written word. She’s completely fearless and ready to push boundaries, and as a director, I feel I never have to censor my imagination with her,” she says.

As an actor whose liberal politics reflect in her work, Apte strives to make the right compromises. While mainstream actresses are quick to disavow the dreaded F-word, she is smart enough to recognise the misogyny entrenched in traditional narratives. “I think it’s not just the film industry, it’s the society that is patriarchal — the industry is just a reflection of that.” She has spoken publicly about her disillusionment with the Telugu film industry, but finds B-town more egalitarian in comparison. Her prior choices notwithstanding, she has starred in the viral Myntra ad championing maternity rights at the workplace, and recently in another viral campaign by an online blog, Unblushed, around body positive messaging for women. “I still do compromise. If I stop compromising, then I will not be able to work,” she says matter-of-factly. “Wherever I can put my foot down, I do. That doesn’t mean that if I am offered to play the part of a complete pativrata I will not do it — I will, provided there’s a reason why that part is there. But if that’s what the film is promoting, I won’t do it. That’s the only difference.”

This year, apart from Giddy , Apte will be starring in another Phantom production, Ghoul , directed by Patrick Graham; both the supernatural horror films are in collaboration with Blumhouse and Ivanhoe Pictures. With Phobia already in theatres, she’s unconcerned about being typecast as the leading indie supernatural/horror queen. She just wrapped up shooting for The Ashram , another international co-production, with Kal Penn. “After Shor in the City , I only got sari-clad roles. After Badlapur , I was offered sex comedies. I don’t mind doing genre roles as long as they offer me something substantial. For instance, Ghoul is a female-protagonist film and I have a kickass role in it.”

Apte has carried the momentum of 2015 well into 2016, bagging the Best Actor in an International Narrative Feature award at the Tribeca Film Festival, in a first for any Indian actor. The accolade is for her part in Clean Shaven , a 20-minute segment directed by Kashyap for the anthology Madly .

Last year, clips of a frontally nude Apte from Madly were leaked online. “It upset me for a couple of days, but after a point I don’t care about what people think. I care about what I feel about my own work.” Kashyap can’t sing enough praises for her “strength of character. The way she handled that entire controversy made me respect her spirit so much more. Not once did she come to me and say I regret doing this.”

In a star-driven age where image matters foremost and personas are meticulously manufactured, Apte with her devil-may-care attitude seems determined to go against the grain. “I don’t have any rules that I follow apart from the fact that if I like it, I will do it.” By the time we wind down the interview, it’s past 9 pm, and Apte is wondering which drink to order. Here’s raising a toast, to the woman of the moment.

Ritika Bhatia is a freelance journalist and communications consultant based in Mumbai

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