'Guilty Minds': Shriya Pilgaonkar And Varun Mitra Talk About Visiting A Real Court For The Preparation Of Their Characters

'Guilty Minds' is about to bring a heavy courtroom drama in front of the audience as the trailer gives a perfect glimpse of the same.

Picture Courtesy: @shriya.pilgaonkar/Instagram.

New Delhi: Amazon Prime Video's first-ever legal drama, 'Guilty Minds' is about to bring a heavy courtroom drama in front of the audience as the trailer gives a perfect glimpse of the same. Where the director Shefali Bhushan, who belongs to the family of lawyers, took a hard preparation to create this web series then the leading cast Shriya Pilgaonkar and Varun Mitra who will be seen essaying the characters of lawyers also went through a good preparation to learn about their character that includes their visit to a High Courts and Trial Courts for their research.

Shriya Pilgaonkar who has made a visit to Delhi High Court shared her experience and said, "I spoke to my lawyer friends and visited the high court a few times for research. It was important for me to understand their approach towards their profession. Clearly the courts are not always as dramatic as we have seen them represented on screen. While observing some lawyers, I realized that every lawyer brings their own persona and style while presenting themselves, and they are also performers in that sense. The challenge was to not play into the stereotype of a lawyer but to perform with authenticity and as realistic as possible without trying too hard. I didn’t want to be too cerebral about it. I completely trusted Shefali to guide me through the process. She said to me that I just have to trust that I am Kashaf and just go with the flow. I had so much fun.”

Whereas on the other hand, the second lead, Varun Mitra also made a visit to a trial court in Mumbai and shared the experience by saying, "I went to the trial court in Mumbai with a lawyer friend before the shoot began. We entered many sessions that were ongoing and in one of the courtrooms my eyes fell upon a lawyer who I was told was known to be theatrical and animated and also loved by the judges. He walked into the courtroom with a swagger and came alive while arguing his case. What I took from him was that he was “enjoying” himself while arguing the case. I think I was destined to see him that day. That day was the birth of Deepak Rana.”

Director director Shefali Bhushan said, “A lot of research went into making this series because we wanted very accurate arguments and references to the sections of the IPC. So whatever topic we have chosen, we actually read up a lot of law around that topic. We consulted with lawyers. Two bonafide lawyers were in our writer's room as well, Manav, Bhushan who studied law but not practicing, and Deeksha Gujral who is a practicing lawyer. So yes, we went into a lot of research.”

Co-directed by Jayant Digambar Somalkar, and produced by Karan Grover, Antara Banerjee and Naved Farooqui, 'Guilty Minds' will exclusively stream on Amazon Prime Video from April 22, 2022.