Huma Qureshi’s stellar performance in the web series Maharani has earned her high accolades. It is a political drama in which Huma played the role of Rani Bharti. Days after the show’s release, Huma has now revealed that she was ‘petrified’ when she heard the script’s narration. She talked about her first reaction to the script and shared how there was no mention of the conventional things that women are otherwise often told.
In an interview with Bollywood Hungama, Huma Qureshi revealed that after the pandemic had just begun, this was the first script that she heard over a Zoom call. While the script sounded interesting to her, she also said “But then of course all these conventional things that as women we’re told. Like, ‘Oh but this is not glam enough. This is not cool enough, and are you going to slot yourself? What if it doesn’t work, and she has all these kids? Should we negotiate ”?
In the show, Huma’s character Rani had 3 kids and the actress remembered someone asking her, “Maybe you should have just one kid, why would you wanna play mother to three kids? Do you want to age yourself ?” Not just this, but Huma was also advised to make a creative suggestion to the team asking them to have just one child for Rani. However, Huma refused it because she thought it wasn’t a good creative suggestion and also because she did not want to bring her personal insecurities to the table.
Talking about the other aspects of the character, Huma Quresh revealed that not wearing any make-up scared her. “I was scared about not wearing any makeup. In season 2, at least I am the chief minister so I am in better clothes. In season 1, I literally had rubber slippers, dirty synthetic saree that I would pull up and tuck in (above stomach). It was not falling gracefully, it looked like you have just wrapped it. The body language of the women who work in the fields, pick up cow dung from hand, I wanted to get that and I didn’t want it to be like ‘oh this is a filmy version of it.’ I think that’s what really connected with people,” she said.
The first season of Maharani was released on Sony LIV on May 28, 2021 whereas the second season premiered on August 25 this year. The drama series is created by Subhash Kapoor and also stars Sohum Shah and Vineet Kumar in key roles.
