Mithya means a lie. There’s a film on the same name that stars Ranvir Shorey in a double role that came out back in 2008. The first season of Mithya was directed by Rohan Sippy, of Bluffmaster fame. There was a lot of bluff involved in Mithya as well, the basic premise was about the battle between plagiarism and originality. Huma Qureshi played a Hindi professor and Avantika Dasani was her deceptive and suspicious student.
The second season is streaming on Zee5. And in an exclusive interview with Firstpost, Dasani spoke about her character, working with Huma Qureshi, and the evolution of content through OTT.
Edited excerpts from the interview
How did you land the role of Ria for the show?
So it’s actually very interesting. This was one of the first Zoom auditions that I had given. So I was actually quite nervous because during an audition, your co actor or whoever’s leading lines with you will give you a certain energy. We’ll be matched and it helps a lot, also with your and all of those things. I was actually quite nervous. And we had a couple of rounds of that we went through with. And it really worked because the next thing I know is the casting director calls me up and says, what are you doing.
Can you talk right now? Are you seated? All of this. And then I was like, yeah. You know what’s up? Like, having absolutely no idea what’s going on. And then she says, okay. You’ve got the part. And Goldie wants to meet you. And I was just, like, blown away, obviously, and super, super excited about it. But, it was during the lockdown that all of it happened, and, it was quite a surprise.
Also, this is a really twisted character. So how did you prepare for it?
It’s a very interesting character and I think any sort of character that one approaches, the idea is that in our own heads, we are always the hero. Yes.
And no matter what you’re doing to somebody else, you might be a villain, but in your own head, you’re a hero. In your own head, you are justified for what you’re doing. Your actions are justified. Your thoughts and behaviours are justified. So that was a very important thing while working on Ria was that I can’t judge her. I can’t judge what she’s doing, what she thinks, how she approaches things. Because from wherever she comes from, this makes sense and this is the right way to do it. So it was important to sort of understand her drives, her motivations.
So in that, we understood and dug up the fact that, obviously, she’s had a very troubled childhood. She’s had all of these experiences. And at the core of everything, all she wants is to be loved, to be accepted, to have a family that is protecting her. And she never really got that. So she never had anyone to guide her and tell her this is right or this is wrong or this is what one must do.
But she always had to do things to get the attention on her, while also being guarded, with herself and, you know, what she does in order to protect herself. So it’s just through workshops that I worked on this character, that I worked on how I would like Ria to be portrayed, who she really is, what is her relationship with all of the other actors and characters in this project.
How was it like doing those scenes with Huma Qureshi? Because there is a love hate relationship. What do you have to say about this chemistry with her?
It’s not just a hate relationship because there’s also sort of sibling rivalry, which is very strong. There’s an amount of she actually really want in season 1, what she really wants to do is get love and acceptance from Juhi as well, which is also why it is important for her to particularly do well in this class because she wants to be seen as, you know, someone that Juhi admires and he falls in love with as a student or whatever it is.
And that’s what Ria thinks that we connect her to Juhi or the fact that her father will take notice and Juhi will take notice, but she doesn’t get that affection back. She’s also obviously jealous of Juhi or the place that Juhi has, in Anand’s life as well as Julie having the perfect family with her parents as well as Juhi meal and, you know, all of that situation. So, there’s there’s a I think it’s more complex than just simply hate.
How much do you feel content has changed in these so many years?
it’s absolutely different, and there’s just nothing, that is, you know I mean, not nothing, but it’s so different from what it used to be and the way, it’s sort of, being not only made today but also experienced today. Because with OTT, the way we view and we enjoy content is very different from the way it was earlier. There is too much more to watch.
There’s world cinema that is accessible to, everybody. There’s a regional cinema that we now view that we weren’t seeing earlier. So I think as audiences, our horizons have just expanded as well as obviously the actors in the industry. But for me, there’s also the unfortunate bits that, the ability to be iconic is I find very hard now.