Playing historical character is not easy: Achint Kaur

MUMBAI - Her forte is playing the modern woman on the small screen but TV actress Achint Kaur is now trying something different with Zee TV’s show “Jhansi Ki Rani” and admits that playing a historical character is challenging.

“Playing a historical character is not easy. It is difficult in the sense that everything is very pronounced. For any normal scene I would just smile, say my dialogue and the scene is done but here everything is very specific and very underlined so the performance also becomes very specific,” Achint, who has returned to the small screen after a year-long hiatus, told IANS.

In “Jhansi Ki Rani”, Achint has been cast as the aggressive queen of Orchha who will fight Rani Laxmibai to win the state of Jhansi. She said that she had to work to get her diction right.

“It is important that you have your diction right because a lot of Hindi and Sanskrit words are used and you have to ensure that you enunciate it in the right manner. It is difficult,” she said.

“It was a challenge right from the way I talk… I told my director that it’s up to you how you make me act the right way. I was apprehensive about the fact that I might just enact it in my way and I could look loud and dumb.”

The actress is upbeat about doing stunts.

“I am quite an adventurous person myself. I have been a national level athlete, paratrooper and a mountaineer. I love doing stunts and here I am getting a chance to perform them which is quite exciting. Learning sword-fighting and horse-riding was also a lot of fun,” she said.

Born and brought up in Meerut, Achint started her career in television with “Banegi Apni Baat” and later went on to do shows like “Swabhimaan”, “Saaya” and “Virrudh”, among others. She is still remembered for her role as Mandira in “Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi” and Pallavi in “Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki”. She has also done cameos in movies like “Om Jai Jagadish”, “Sur”, “Corporate” and, most recently, “Guzaarish”.

In 15 years of her career, Achint has been part of as many as 35 shows on television and says there was no dearth of roles for her.

“Since the time I entered the industry with ‘Banegi Apni Baat’, by god’s grace there has been no looking back. I never had to hunt for work. I have been lucky enough to have got good roles. In the first six years nobody gave me negative characters but then the era of daily soaps came and I took up negative roles and people liked me,” she said.

However, Achint feels there is a dearth of good shows.

“When Balaji (Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Telefilms) happened to the industry, their saas-bahu serials were a hit. People started imitating them and that’s why it became boring. The ratings are the same everywhere, also the number of channels have also increased. So, there’s nothing new, you hardly find different shows,” she said.