MUMBAI : The new web series Undekhi is climbing up the popularity charts and Koyal’s character - played by Apeksha Porwal - is being praised by all. Talking about Koyal’s character, she says, “Actually, Koyal doesn’t have any dialogues until episode 4. Even from episode 5, she barely has any lines. Although portraying such a character with few dialogues was difficult, I think that’s what made the character more real. I feel that silence comes with the amount of pain and trauma that she's been through. This whole situation is completely alien to her and she never had time to get used to it since she was thrown into it. She experienced her sister getting killed in front of her. When you face something like this, I think it's natural to take solace in silence. In my first meeting with Sidharth sir, he told me that Koyal’s character needs to speak through his eyes. Her character’s emotions and pain are all conveyed just through her eyes. Honestly, it was so interesting for me to portray a character with such a few lines.” Apeksha has shot for this in Manali with extreme temperatures. She adds,” The weather was a huge challenge for me when filming. It started snowing on the very first day of shooting and since my costume was only one layer, it would get really tough. Even my forest scenes were very difficult since I was barefoot. There were many long shots of me running and the ground was also very cold. The production team had tried making me wear soles but nothing would stay on so I had to film multiple shots barefoot. It was very important for me to get the language right and the body language of a girl with such a background right. I wanted to make sure my gestures, the way I ran, talked, sat etc. were exactly like the character. For a city girl like me, who has a very different background, it was both challenging and fun to play such a character. I knew one thing for sure: I did not want to compromise on authenticity.”
(ALSO READ : Being dusky wasn’t even a topic of conversation in my family, says Apeksha Porwal)
Speaking about her director Ashish Shukla she says,” I feel blessed to have Ashish sir as my first director. I think he’s just incredible and his knowledge of cinema is so vast. I used to sit for hours just listening to him talk about his favourite types of scenes, movies, tv shows etc. He helped me a lot by guiding me through every step of playing Koyal. He gave me movies for reference. He would always talk to me about the motivation behind the character. He trusts his actor to explore and also gives you freedom. Basically , he's a director every actor would like to work. After the shoots, we always used to listen to his choice of music. He has an excellent collection of songs. And also whenever I was not shooting I used to sit with him at the monitor, listen to him and pay attention to his cues. The entire experience was fantastic.”
(ALSO READ : Koyal from Undekhi is the perfect debut I could have asked for: Apeksha Porwal)
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