Actor Sanjay Suri who is playing an antagonist in the latest web series ‘Avrodh – The Siege Within 2’ shares how playing a morally disturbing character was challenging for him and he had to detach himself from his personal experience to do justice to his on-screen character.
Born and brought up in Kashmir, Sanjay had a happy life until one day his father was killed during a terrorist attack and his family was forced to flee from the valley to Jammu and eventually shifted to Delhi.
Now that the actor is playing a Pakistani man named Ehsaan Waziri who made a financial attack on India – in the show ‘Avrodh – The Siege Within 2’, Sanjay shared the constant negotiation he had in his mind to play a character who is morally disturbing.
Sanjay told, “Firstly the show is a work of fiction, inspired by some real-life incident; so it has a lot of fiction. The character I am playing is a radicalised Pakistani man, highly educated, westernised, intelligent, who is doing a huge financial attack on India. This terrorism is different, it does not make noise but it hits hard at the target. Playing such a character was challenging for sure.”
He further added, “Coming from Kashmir, where I lived a life and have an idea of both sides of the situation, it is easy to bring my sensibility to the narrative, of course following the script. But I do not want to bring my personal agony to it, I had to disassociate myself from my past experience; otherwise, I wouldn’t have done justice to the character.”
Citing an example and drawing the parallel from the life of a soldier, Sanjay said, “when you are at war as a soldier, even though you are a son, a father and husband to someone, your priority is different when you are in the line of duty. Similarly, when I am playing a Pakistani terrorist, I had to keep Sanjay Suri and his personal life experience aside, and only focus on how the actor plays the character with conviction. I think I negotiated well in my head, before approaching the character.”
‘Avrodh – The Siege Within 2’ directed by Raj Acharya, features Mohan Agashe, Neeraj Kabi, Anant Mahadevan, Aahana Kumra, Rajesh Khattar, Abir Chatterjee, among others.
Credits: timesofindia