Bubbly,easy-going,friendly sans starry airs,Nandana Sen talks about her role in Autograph in which she is pitted against numero uno Prosenjit and the relatively new Indraneil Sengupta. What drew you to Autograph, the story,the character,the message,or the director? Srijit Mukherjee and I met in Bangalore two years ago. He had written a play and wanted me to act in it. I loved the script but at that time I was shooting for some other film. So the dates were clashing. We got talking about movies that had greatly influenced us,and both of us blurted out Nayak in the same breath! That was the beginning. We then got talking about the concept of Autograph with a lot of excitement. It was clear that Srijit was very passionate about it,and although he had a brilliant career as a statistician,I encouraged him (perhaps a little irresponsibly,but I was so sure of his talent),to give up corporate statistics and write the script instead. The seed for Autograph was sown over coffee and bloomed into a full-blown script in the following year in Mumbai,Kolkata,Bengaluru and Shantiniketan! Srijit wrote an extraordinary script full of fun,imagination,soulful,and uncompromisingly real and at the same time,romantic in a very lyrical way. He is a fabulous writer and created wonderful characters any actor would say yes to any of the roles. And everyone did. You have been paired with Prosenjit for the first time and in the film,we see that you are very nervous of playing the romantic interest of the hero who was your college crush. Did you identify with these feelings when you accepted this role and the film? Once Srijit and I decided to start out on this adventure,we knew the only actor who had the talent and the stature to play the superstar in our film was Prosenjit. I gathered courage and called him up from Mumbai. I was nervous. I had admired him for years! But Prosenjit was so warm and encouraging that any nervousness I may have had disappeared in a flash. We had an hour-long chat on the phone. When I came to Kolkata,I narrated the story idea to him. He loved it. I requested him to meet Srijit. We could not have done this film without his support. Once he came on board,everything just fell into place. How was it working under the directorial wand of a new filmmaker since you have already worked with very established directors in your career?Srijit is a brilliant writer and a director with a strong and unique vision. Our creative wavelengths matched perfectly from the start. Most importantly,we had a fantastic team all around. Sohagdi (Sohag Sen,the theatre person) ran an acting workshop that helped all of us tremendously. She sat at the monitor through every take. Bodhaditya,the editor was closely involved with the film from the scripting stage. And Soumik Haldar gave the film a rich,intensely beautiful look. The making proved once again what a collaborative medium film is. What is your character in Autograph? Indraneil and I grasped the graph of our characters through the improvisations we did with Sohagdi and Srijit. Srijit and I both come from a theatre background,so we worked very well together. In a way,I play two characters in Autograph,both equally intriguing. It is one of the many things that made working on this film real fun! The two characters are very different from each other.. Srinandita is a just-graduated theatre actor who is feisty,girlish,pure at heart but at the same time,very confident. She is extremely spontaneous,carefree and natural,in look as well as behaviour. Jahnabi,the character I play in Aajker Nayak,the film-within-the-film is all woman,sharp-witted and quick-tongued,much more sophisticated. Unlike Srinandita,who is unaware of her own appeal,Jahnabi knows the power she has as a woman. She uses it too. But at the core Srinandita and Jahnabi are deeply idealistic and forthright. Both would stand by their beliefs at any cost. Which five,among your films,would you choose as your personal favourites? This is not in any order of preference or ranking,but here goes: Rang Rasiya. Autograph,The War Within,The Forest and Black. Be it the ethereal Devdasi in Ketan Mehtas Rang Rasiya,the tough city girl in Ashwin Kumars The Forest,or the idealistic journalist in Anubhav Sinhas Zindabad,all the characters I have done so far are of women who are pure at heart,idealistic to the core,and are also ready to symbolise the character of an adventuress with a defining streak of ruthlessness. While the five roles are totally different from each other,all are unstoppably fearless women,who break the rules of their world to achieve what they must. You are an independent young woman. How do you explain this independence? All my life,I was lucky to be surrounded by brave women who insisted on living life on their own terms. Given her generation,my grandmother,or Dimma was the most fearless of them all. Dimma was a self-educated,much-awarded poet,a child-widow who shocked the world by remarrying for love,later in life. She created an even bigger scandal during her wedding ceremony,when she formally did her own sampradan to her poet groom,Narendra Dev. She insisted that no one had the right to give her away in marriage but herself. Dimma was a woman of fascinating contradictions. A strict disciplinarian who kept a watchful eye on me and my teen love,she was also the one who encouraged me to take risks and explore new experiences. But every now and then even our intrepid Dimma would get scared not for herself,but for us. You were one of the jury members at the recently-concluded Abu Dhabi Film Festival. What was your experience like? When I was invited to be a jury member at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival (ADFF),I accepted the invitation. I remembered that Autograph would be releasing in India around the same time and placed a request to the organisers to have the world premiere of the film at the festival in the non-competitive section. For me,the highpoint of the festival was when on my request,Abbas Kiarostami (whose films Ive loved all my life) came to see Autograph,waited to congratulate me on my work and then said he couldnt wait to see Nayak again! This month,the US premiere of Autograph will be held at the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival in New York where I am also a member of the jury. Bold and Beautiful Bold and beautiful Nandana Sen belongs to one of the most talented and intellectual Bengali families in the world. Like her mother,litterateur and academic scholar Nabanita Deb Sen,late grandmother Radharani Debi,a renowned poet,Nandana likes living life on her own terms without bringing in the name of her Nobel Laureate father Amartya Sen into her conversations. She is not very prolific on the acting landscape,but she has done diverse roles in movies directed by distinguished filmmakers.
