The Archies’ Aditi Saigal says ‘to be known a little bit freaked me out initially’; reveals Suhana Khan is a ‘natural dancer’

Dot says she’s happy with the love she is receiving for her role in The Archies. She says, “My family and friends have loved it. People have a range of opinions and that’s how it is. I have received a fairly good response, so I am happy about that. I am already thinking about what’s next. I am trying to get into that mindset and not getting too ahead of myself at this stage.”

While Dot has been making music for over five years now and has dedicated followers on her YouTube channel, she has received public attention for her acting chops with The Archies. She says, “I did get a bit of recognition when my song “Everybody Dances” came out. It was like an introduction to what it is to be known a little bit and it did freak me out initially. It was a bit scary. But this (The Archies) is whole another level. Honestly, I don’t do things for recognition. I do them because I like to do them. I wrote songs purely for myself and if people are connecting with it, then it is always an amazing thing. Otherwise, I am very bad at pushing it. I am very protective of my creative liberty, so I make sure that I have the space to create what I want to create and not limit myself.”

Dot has over 19,000 followers on YouTube and Zoya Akhtar had recently revealed how she had first approached the young singer for one of the songs in The Archies but later found Ethel Muggs, a character in the film, in her.

Describing how Zoya approached her for the movie, Dot shares, “So Zoya had been following my YouTube channel for a long time, and she loved my music. She had initially approached me for the song “Assymetrical” in the film. If you are putting your song in a film, especially if it is a musical, it requires some editing here and there because the lyrics have to make sense in the story. So we had to sit and edit the lyrics. We were also making it into a duet, so we had to write a few lines. We did that together over Zoom. I was in the UK at the time. As we were editing, she asked me, ‘Do you act?’, and I said, ‘No, I had acted only in school, not professionally.’ But she anyway asked me to audition because she felt I was right for the part.”

Dot also reveals how Zoya Akhtar, after finding all her characters for The Archies, conducted extensive year-long acting and singing workshops, which she says was an “intense boot camp” for all cast members. The actor-singer further said that while she, Khushi and Agastya picked up dancing on the job, Suhana Khan, who played Betty Cooper in the film, and Yuvraj Menda, who played Dilton Doiley, were “natural dancers”.

She says, “We were together the whole time. We were together as a group. We did acting workshops, dancing workshops, which for me was like (a bit difficult) as I am not a dancer. I had to learn on the job, and it was really trying. You know Suhana is the actual (dancer). She is very good and Yuvraj is great. I think Agastya, Vedang, Khushi and I picked it up on the job. Other than Yuvraj and Suhana, we really didn’t know how to dance. Some of them had singing lessons, which I didn’t have because I come from a music background. We always played music together on set because there were always guitars and pianos around.”

“We share a very close bond. There is a certain intimacy you feel with your co-actors because we spent so much time together in close quarters and we were working towards something together, even when we all had different personalities. I don’t think I have experienced anything like this before. It felt like we were on a basketball team or something. We became very close and Zoya made sure of that. I think the reason why we did so many workshops was to bring us close together and it definitely did that,” Dot concludes.