Adah Sharma has repositioned herself as an actor leading politically-charged films in the last 12 months. She saw a resurgence of sorts with the sleeper hit The Kerala Story last year and then reunited with its director Sudipto Sen for Bastar: The Naxal Story, which released last week. The actress says that her appearance in the two controversial films has made her a target of trolls on social media. In a candid chat with DNA, Adah opens up about Bastar, tackling hate on social media, and more.
Bastar sees Adah play an IG Police, who spearheads the operation against Naxals. The actress says she was told by director Sen to not look ‘feminine’ for the role.” I needed to look like I was living in the forest. If I was a man living in the forest, my skin would have to show that. Similarly, if I was a man carrying those guns, I would have to be extra muscular. So you shouldn’t feel that a feminine form is in front of you. I had to be this asexual person fighting a war,” she recalls.
Like The Kerala Story, Bastar has been in the middle of controversy with many detractors calling it ‘agenda-driven’ and labelling it propaganda. Adah reacts, “When they launched the poster of Bastar, I was not even a part of it. The poster just had the forest and the film’s title, the word Bastar. I was not even cast for it so I was not there. There was not even a synopsis. And under that, all the comments were ‘propaganda’! If you are deciding it is propaganda based on just that, I don’t know what to say.”
Adah says that what irked her initially was people’s tendency to judge a film before watching it but she has now made her peace with it. “I choose my peace of mind. Even if you want to criticise my film without watching, do it. It is a free country. Just like you are free to do that, we are free to make a film like Bastar. That is because of our armed forces. They have protected that freedom. So if someone is brutally killing our armed forces, I am not ok with that,” she says.
Two weeks before Bastar’s release, Adah was seen in the second season of the dark comedy Sunflower. The actress says that even during the promotions for the show, she was trolled. “I see those propaganda comments on each post I make, even ones about Sunflower. There will be that word – prostitute in Hindi. So like I say it’s a free country. You can choose to do what you want. I will not go out and engage every one of you,” the actress says.
Bastar: The Naxal Story released in theatres on March 15 to lukewarm reviews and middling response from the audiences. Unlike The Kerala Story, Bastar has not been able to set the cash registers ringing, earning just Rs 2.7 crore in the first six days domestically at the box office.
