Fukrey Returns actress Richa Chadda on playing don in her new film

The Bollywood actress returns with her mean gangster act in the comedy about four slackers

How often does a woman get to shine in a comedy dominated by lads?
Bollywood actress Richa Chadda managed to pull off that feat in the 2013 hit Fukrey, a tale about four slackers from Delhi who embark on some ludicrous schemes to get admissions on the sly to a swanky college.

Chadda played the brazen Punjabi don, Bholi Punjaban, who gives those men a run for their money when they try to mess with her happiness and draw her in on their wild, ill-conceived schemes.
She’s back this Thursday with its sequel, Fukrey Returns.

“My character is written like a non-traditional villain’s character. So I love it. I have never seen villains — irrespective of their gender — be written like this,” said Chadda in an interview with Gulf News tabloid!.

In the second instalment, the 30-year-old actress claims her character is meaner and quirkier than before. Her bullying tactics, when the men get on her wrong side again, has grown morbid with time. The trailer shows her taunting the petrified boys at a dark basement.
“She’s so much fun and it was liberating to play her on so many levels... To torture the fukras [losers], she comes up with new innovating, creative ways of torturing them... She weirdly enjoys what she does.”

Asking debtors who owe her money to sell one of their kidneys to raise her loan amount is one such fear-inducing tactic. She’s ruthless when it comes to exacting revenge and settling old scores.
“She wants people to know that nobody gets away with hurting her or taking money from here. She doesn’t want people to borrow money from her if they cannot repay it in the first place.”
In Fukrey Returns, Bholi Punjaban is pissed because she’s in jail as her drug-trafficking ring gets busted by the boys in the original. The slacker quartet, played by actors Ali Fazal, Pulkit Samrat, Manjot Singh and Varun Sharma, are retained in the sequel. Ask the men about their favourite character and they all envy Bholi Punjaban’s spunk and spirit. That shouldn’t come as a surprise says Chadda.

“She’s a female don who’s into pimping and has her own money-lending thing going on. She isn’t someone whom you will have an intellectual conversation with. She won’t discuss literature or politics, but I can guarantee that there’s more of me in the second part,” she said.
The stakes are higher in the sequel where the boys get into a deeper fix with their ludicrous plans and shortcuts to make it big in their lives.

“She is truly empowered in this one... I can’t reveal anything more. But I tidy up things and tie up the loose ends, making it an interesting watch. The boys too are a lot of fun in the sequel,” said Chadda.
The self-made star, who impressed us with a mix of mainstream and independent films such as Sarabjit and Masaan in her short, but illustrious career, wasn’t uncomfortable being in the company of men either. They got along like the proverbial house on fire.
Apparently, actor Manjot Singh and Varun Sharma are buddies who seek her out for dating advice. So, did she feel like one of the boys?

“Gangs of Wasseypur has prepared me for that for the rest of my life. It was such a testosterone-filled sets, so it wasn’t hard with the Fukrey boys at all,” said Chadda alluding to her gritty thriller that dwelled on gangster life.

When it came to playing her role as a female don, she didn’t go down the method-acting route either. Her director Mrigdeep Singh Lamba just nudged her in the right directions. He asked her to unlearn and surrender to her character without worrying about other technicalities of acting.
“I just tried to be as authentic as possible. But the biggest challenge for me was to let go of the wisdom I had gained in films so far. The original Fukrey was my third film, I was new and naive. But with the sequel I had become wiser in the sense that I knew which angle was better for me. One day, my director took me aside and said the more I unlearn, the better. Sometimes, actors become too smart for their own shoes.”

While she made it her business to play Bholi Punjaaban with no artifice, Chadda does not subscribe to the same policy when it comes to the question of sexual misconduct in Bollywood. According to her, it isn’t just the women who should rally together. Men should do the same too, says the actress.
“If you know something bad is happening and you are not doing anything about it, then you are complicit. That’s my opinion and that is what everyone needs to understand. I even wrote about it in a blog, because all I got asked was about it during a recent film promotion. People tried to get a tidy soundbite, as UmaThurman rightly called it, out of me.” Chadda compares sexual harassment to pollution and a problem that’s endemic.

“Let’s make it OK for people to come ahead and say: ‘hey, it happened to me too’. The more we talk, the more we get rid of the culture [of] shaming. Fear is a real thing. Harvey Weinstein was a cold-blooded predator who wouldn’t have stopped until he was caught.”
If Chadda had her way, she would cultivate an ecosystem in Bollywood that would support victims. “If you speak up in Bollywood, you might risk losing your livelihood. In Hollywood, there’s a system of royalties, but that’s not the case with Bollywood. We have a long way to go.”

MEET THE MEN FROM FUKREY RETURNS:

Who: Ali Fazal
Role: Zafar
His defining trait: He’s the sane voice among the boys.
About Fukrey Returns: “It’s a classic ‘triumph of the underdogs’ story. These guys are the working class heroes and they represent the youth in some way. They just want to make it big and dream of making it big easy.”
His biggest jugaad [hack]: “The innovative ways in which we try to sell our films today is the biggest jugaad.”

Who: Varun Sharma
Role: Choocha
His defining trait: He’s always bumbling and looking for some action on the relationship front
About Fukrey Returns: “Fukrey Returns is not like the movie Inception. You really don’t need so much brains to watch the film. This is a light-hearted, funny film in which you can laugh at the antics of four slackers. This is one of the rare films where you can watch it anywhere and still laugh out loud.”
His biggest jugaad [hack] in his life: “The biggest jugaad in my life was when our parent agreed to send us to an uncertain industry such as Bollywood and allowed us to try our luck in films. That’s pretty amazing.”

Who: Manjot Singh
Role: Lali
His defining trait: He’s game to play along with any scheme that Fukrey boys hatch
About Fukrey Returns: “It’s best enjoyed if you have already seen the original. All our characters are established in the original. So watch that and come on a wild ride with us.”
Don’t miss it!
Fukrey Returns is out in the UAE on Thursday.