Exclusive | 'I Shaved For The First Time In My Life, Interacted With Friends Who Are Gay...': Ankur Bhatia On His Preparations For 'Taali'

In a chat with ABP Live, Ankur talked about the preparations he took for the role and also how he adopted a few changes to suit 'Naveen's' persona as a soft-spoken guy.

Ankur Bhatia Opens Up About His Preparation For 'Naveen's' Character In 'Taali'

New Delhi: Ankur Bhatia, who played 'Sangram' in 'Aarya,' is reuniting with Sushmita Sen for her upcoming series 'Taali,' which is based on the life of Gauri Sawant. Sen plays the character of Gauri Sawant while Ankur aces the role of 'Naveen', who is a gay activist and also runs an NGO. Naveen happens to be one of the strongest supporters of Gauri as she fights her battle for the inclusion of the third gender in all Indian documents. 

In a chat with ABP Live Ankur talked about the preparations he took for the role sharing that he shaved for the first time, and also adopted a few changes to suit 'Naveen's' persona as a soft-spoken guy.

He said, "To play Naveen, I shaved for the first time in my life, and that was a big thing for me as I hadn't shaved for the last 10-11 years. Also, this was a zone I was not comfortable with, so I shaved about one and a half month before the shoot started and I was clean-shaved. In addition to that, I got all the behavioural changes in me to go as a soft-spoken, nice and a next-door guy. Another thing I did was that I lost a lot of weight, started wearing kurta-pajama and I also interacted with a couple of my friends who are gay."

"There was a very good friend of mine in college, who had a very tough time opeing up to his parents and had tremendous difficulties in his life. So I met him in New York and the one thing that I wanted to do about my character was that I didn't want to make it caricature-ish like the sterotypical ones and the way they kind of make a mockery about the whole thing about gays. And, the friends that I have, they don't behave like that- unless they tell you, you won't even know what their sexual orientation is. So, I managed to bring in that kind of qualitites from the experiences that I have had with people from my past," he went on to say.

"I also wrote a short autobiography about Naveen, of probably what all he has gone through because you see Naveen in the series when he is the activist, you don't see what has happened in his past and I kind of made that up on my own so that I can be in the frame. I just wanted to keep him as one of us and not make a stereotypical gay character. It was a responsibility that I had which I didn't want to abuse at all," Bhatia added.

While playing 'Naveen', the most important thing Ankur felt about the character was the pain that a man who is gay goes through in our Indian society.

"The minute I signed up for this thing, I told my dad about it," Ankur went on to say, "I am from Bhopal, and the mentality of people out there is still... I mean they are evolving but I couldn't imagine myself opening up to my father that I am playing a gay character. When I opened up to him, I realised that he didn't have a shock value to it and then I could imagine him 15-20 years back, they wouldn't even talk about it, the channel would be changed on the TV... So, for me the most important thing was that I was feeling proud about doing this thing"

"I myself have evolved a lot over the last decade, where in the beginning of my career if someone would have offered me this thing, I would have been totally brushed off that 'No, I don't want to do it.' Now, I wanted to take it because I see so mnay things happening around me which are not right and when I am getting an opportunity to be a part of that, so it was more of a pride to me. The bottom line is that they are not some different species, they aree just one of us. So, as an actor I didn't want to overdo it. He is just a common man who is fightng for the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. I took it like that and didn't make a hoopla in my head because then automatically, I would start behaving differently. I just kept him as any other character and normalised him in my brain so that it comes across as a normal character," said Ankur.

'Taali' is slated to be released on Jio Cinemas on August 15, 2023.