Bhumi Pednekar is one fine actor who knows how to get into the skin of her character. With her upcoming dacoit drama ‘Sonchiriya’, which is set in Chambal, Bhumi will be seen portraying the role of a local whose path crosses the dacoits in the area.

Bhumi Pednekar in Sonchiriya

Abhishek Chaubey’s film, also starring Sushant Singh Rajput, Manoj Bajpayee, Ranvir Shorey, and Ashutosh Rana, opens with the declaration of Emergency in the steel strong voice of Indira Gandhi on All India Radio.

In conversation with Scroll, Bhumi, who plays the role of survivor Indumati, shared what traits of her character charmed her the most. “When she is pushed to a situation, she shows extraordinary power and that is why I loved her. I had an opportunity to play this woman who has broken the shackles. I am representing a lot of women who don’t have a voice.”

For the preparation of her role, Bhumi isolated herself from everyone for 30 days so that she could get into the skin of her character as she had to ‘unlearn’ a lot about herself. “I am a very opinionated Bombay girl and have played characters that belong to heartland India, but this one is still different. The biggest thing that I had to do was to get rid of my ego and opinion. I remember in the initial few readings, sir [Chaubey] would keep telling me that I was operating from a place of anger and pride. My character could not have those things yet,” said Bhumi.

She further chronicled the training that she underwent .“They had done this village set-up, where I was to come in the morning and cook something. We then got into our diction training, which was quite hectic. The language is not Hindi but Bundelkhandi, which was alien to us. By the end of the shoot, we were conversing in Bundelkhandi. We had to mentally prepare that this would not be an easy film to shoot.”

Bhumi started her career in the movies after working as an assistant casting director at Yash Raj Films where she played the role of an overweight bride in her debut film Dum Laga Ke Haisha that bagged her Best Female Debut award by Filmfare. Since her first movie, Bhumi has been clear about taking on challenging roles and we have been a witness to it for the myriad roles that she has played. Talking about her choices she said, “I am looking for roles that challenge me and characters that question my existence and help me do extraordinary things.”

Watch the official trailer of Sonchiriya here:

Sonchiriya | Official Trailer | Sushant, Bhumi P, Manoj B, Ranvir S | Abhishek C | 1st March 2019

हार-जीत. खून-खराबा.बैमानी-बदला. Ek झलक चम्बल ke बाग़ियों ki… प्रस्तुत karte hai #SonchiriyaTrailer Releasing 1st March 2019.

H/T: Scroll