By Tanishka Juneja
After acclaiming tremendous love and success for her films down South, actress Kavya Thapar recently won our hearts with her portrayal of Kimi Aulakh in the critically acclaimed Netflix’s web series “CAT” starring Randeep Hooda. Having worked in different film industries in such a short span, Thapar feels she still has a lot to explore because she’s just begun.
The actress has an interesting line up of projects for the year and is currently riding high on the success of this year’s one of the most anticipated series “Farzi” in which she plays Shahid Kapoor’s love interest.
She opens up about her expectations from a relationship, experimenting with roles, how her style has changed over the years and much more in this exclusive interview.
Where actors struggle to make their mark in the single film industry, you’ve dipped your toes in regional film industries such as Telugu and Tamil too. As films are a great way of getting a sneak peek into the culture of your target audience, what are some of the things that you got to learn while working on such diverse films?
What I learnt working on such diverse films, web series or whatever projects I’ve worked on, whichever industry I’ve worked in, is that firstly, all experiences are different. You can never compare because aapki team alag hoti hai. Every time you work on a different project, you have a different cast and crew, different directors and producers, and everybody comes with their own inputs, their own views so, you have to keep an open mind. You have to learn to adapt to everybody’s ideas and not try to fight it with your own beliefs. So, I think you also have to learn to pick your battle and leave your battle in many ways and work as a team at the end of the day for the best of the project. So, I guess that’s my biggest learning.
You debuted in the Hindi film industry with “Middle Class Love” and are now starring opposite Shahid Kapoor in the much-awaited series “Farzi”. Since, both these characters have one common point between them, which is love, I cannot not ask you about your take on love in real life and what are your expectations from a relationship?
I don’t have many expectations when it comes to relationships but speaking of love, I think the only thing I probably expect is brutal honesty. Not just a love relationship but I think in any relationship, just being honest about everything and anything is very important for me and that’s my take on love even in real life and also my only expectation. In my partner specifically, I would only expect him to be vegetarian and not much (laughs).
You’ve worked with a talented bunch of actors on numerous projects. If you could think of one particular scene or moment when you were in awe of your co-star’s performance, which one would it be?
That’s a very difficult question for me because I’ve learnt a lot with many different actors and I’ve been in awe multiple times when they’ve performed because they all have their own strengths and weaknesses. But one moment I can particularly think of is when I was doing CAT and I was working with Randeep sir at that moment. The ability of having a character’s hold and doing a very intense scene in that character was when I was seeing Randeep sir perform, so that was definitely one such moment for me.
Every character you portray on screen is different from one another. According to you, how important is it for actors to experiment with their roles and craft?
I think every character teaches you a lot and yes, I’ve done very different characters. It is important in many ways for an actor to try to experiment with the roles and try to understand in that journey what fits them the best, what they can do the best and find their own strengths as an actor so that they can perform to their utmost potential. Every character takes a lot of character prep so if you do that right, you can explore and experiment a lot in just that much. So, it is very crucial I definitely think so. Even when you are not really doing any specific character and you just do your own homework, you realise a lot of things and it’s very crucial that you understand that there is a zone which are your strengths but to also try and explore your weaknesses so that they aren’t your weaknesses anymore. So, when you go above and beyond your own capabilities, you not only learn a lot about yourself as an actor, but also as a person.
Once you say yes to a project, how do you prepare yourself to get into the skin of that character?
Once I say yes to a project, I get the script which I read 2-3 times, sometimes even more than that just to understand every little nook and cranny of my character. Once I understand what my character is on paper, I compare that to who I am as a person. I take out top 10 traits of the character and top 10 traits and characteristics of Kavya as a person. Out of those 10 differences or similarities, you’ll see that there are 5-6 similarities which could be your strength as Kavya and the character, and a couple of other traits which as the character, Kavya doesn’t have. So, I try and mould myself to bring those points out of me, to bring it to the same degree of the character to fit best into the role. And anyway, whenever you’re casted, you are very close to the character which is why you’re casted so, it becomes easy.
There are times when you explore things in the character which are new to you also, even after doing the prep before getting into the skin of the character. There are many things that come from within you, which we call impulses, during a scene maybe. Some things work, some things don’t work but you do end up exploring a lot of things once you’re in that set up, in your costume, in front of your co-star. So, I think it’s an ongoing process till the end of the movie or the project. You keep discovering, you keep preparing and you keep learning.
You’re someone who sets significant fashion goals for everyone and your social media profile is a proof of that. How has your style changed over the past few years?
(laughs) I wouldn’t really say that I set significant fashion goals as per your question but I think how my style has changed would only be the correct adaptation of trends and the ongoing times. I mean, as the times change fashion changes, fashion always comes back, and you set new fashion trends and stuff like that. So, to adapt to that naturally and organically, in your own liking, taste and comfort of fashion is how my style has changed. I have tried and tested all kinds of styles but I always stuck with what I was most comfortable in and what suited my body type the most. Baaki toh my style has definitely changed as and when times have and I like to explore new trends as long as they look good on me.
Lastly, what genres or kind of characters do you wish to explore in the coming future?
There are still many genres and characters I’d like to explore because I think I have just begun and I still have a lot more to explore in the industry. I’m open to many things as far as I love the character and script and can do justice to it; but something that I would like to do in the coming future would be a very thrilling complex character or problematic you can call, on whose shoulders the entire script rides and the whole story follows them. So, definitely something like that I want to do and explore because it’ll be fun, intense and very different to what I’ve done in the past.
