In a maroon dress cinched at the waist and paired with mile-high stilettos, Huma Qureshi looks nothing like Mohsina of Gangs of Wasseypur ( GOW ) or Munira of Dedh Ishqiya . This is a very modern Qureshi, the one we will see when she makes her Malayalam debut in Uday Ananthan’s White, which releases today.
Qureshi’s impressive CV includes working with directors like Anurag Kashyap, Vishal Bharadwaj and Nikhil Advani. Apart from GOW and Dedh Ishqiya , she has also acted in Badlapur , Ek Thi Dayan and Shorts among others. Her decision to do a Malayalam film just four years into her career is proof of her desire to experiment, much like she’s been doing with her choice of roles. Last year, she acted in Marathi film Highway , so this is not her first brush with a regional language film.
When we meet her, Qureshi looks distraught, furiously typing on her phone as she sits down for the chat with The Hindu . Her dog, Streak, is unwell. “I am sorry,” she apologises distractedly. The situation handled, the interview begins.
Qureshi credits her Malayalam debut to director Uday Ananthan’s script which, she says, drew her in. In the film she plays Roshni Menon, who is in love with a much older Prakash Roy, played by Mammootty. She sums up her White experience as “fun, interesting, first-time Malayalam film”. She adds, “Of course, every film you work on is a different vibe, a different culture. And this is a completely different language, but I had great fun.”
Superstars all
The inevitable question, since she is not from any of the southern film industries, is: did she know, when she signed the film, who Mammootty was? Qureshi’s prompt response: “Of course, I knew who Mammootty was. Between him, Mohanlal and Amitabh Bachchan, they rule the roost as far as acting goes.”
Initially intimidated, Qureshi is all praise for Mammootty, saying it was easy working with him. “It was very nice. He is quite the megastar with years and years of experience. And many, many national awards. It is intimidating, of course. He is a very lovely human being, nice co-star, very helpful. He helped me a lot with the language, often repeating lines after me to explain phonetically and how one should take natural pauses. Malayalam is not a loud language, it’s subtle. These are things only a speaker of the language will know. It was very kind of him to help me out,” she says.
Learning on the job
Malayalam is not the easiest of the languages to work with, and definitely not for one whose ear is new to it. And Qureshi faced the difficulties head-on. She tried learning it with a tutor but soon realised “it is not a language one can pick up in 15 days”. She says, “It’s not something you can do in a ‘30 days for Dummies’ sort of way. It is a complicated language, requires years and years of getting used to and speaking. I tried my best and hope people appreciate it.”
How Qureshi worked her way around the language problem gives us insights into how committed she is. With help from the assistant directors, she learnt the language phonetically, wrote the words down in Roman script, copied all the sounds and clicks and how the mouth moves. “I had to learn all that from getting someone to explain the meanings to where the pauses were. My theatre training helped, as did the fact that I wasn’t intimidated or thrown by the [experience],” she adds.
Working equations
Ananthan is all praise for her work and commitment. “Let’s say if the film, as I visualised it, was an edifice, then Huma comfortably moved into that space, adding the doors and windows and fitting into my vision of the film. Her grasp is impressive,” he says. Qureshi adds, “A lot of blood, sweat and tears have gone into the film, and I hope audiences like it.”
For now, her kitty is brimming. Her releases for the year include Dobara , a remake of the 2013 Hollywood supernatural/ psychological film Occulus . It’s a project she is very excited about, and one which also stars her brother, Saqib Salim. Then there’s Gurinder Chadha’s Viceroy’s House in which she plays Fatima Jinnah.
