We have mostly seen Prachi Desai play the sweet, charming girl on screen, right from her television roles to the films she has taken up. In her latest release Forensic, a psychological thriller, she is seen in a completely different avatar. (Spoiler alert) The actress plays the role of a child psychologist who moonlights as a serial killer, and who also undergoes a sex change operation. It is easily one of the most complicated roles she has ever played, and like says, not even her closest friends or family members expected this sort of a role from her. Excerpts from an interview:
What was your reaction when you found out about your role?
I was beyond thrilled that someone actually thought of me for this particular role. I was waiting to take on a challenge. And it just came out of nowhere, which is really amazing. I personally also never thought that, you know, this is the kind of twist that this story will take. So, yeah, it just came like a great surprise. As an actor, I couldn’t be happier that this is the kind of role that was being offered to me. I was really kicked about that.
Considering this was your first out-and-out negative role, did you have any apprehensions?
No apprehensions at all. I think it just went into this extremely interesting zone where the process had to be figured out, the method had to be figured out. And it all had to be figured out only by me in my own head, because nobody was going to be able to help me with that -making sense of all of it, trying to understand where this person comes from, what could be their motivation, what’s their backstory.
I found out so many things that just just don’t make sense in real life. From the youngest serial killer being from India, just an eight year old, just facts like that. It was sort of nice to know how psychology works in different people, like what drives people to do certain things, or just human psyche in general.
What has been the reaction to your role?
I got a lot of feedback that said, ‘Wow, we just didn’t see that coming at all.’ And the best was all the reactions from my friends, from my own people, because they had no idea what I just went and did in this particular film.
Was it refreshing to be able to kind of surprise people with a different side of you as an actor?
I was like, Oh, you think I’m sweet? Wait, let me show you my real self. I guess at some point, you just show up, you just get into a zone where you know, that you can do a lot more. There’s so much more that you can offer. And even as an actor, there’s so much new stuff that you want to do. There’s so many boundaries that you want to push, but you’re only as good as the opportunities you get.
I know that everyone’s very comfortable watching me play the nice girl. I’m very comfortable doing it. If you wake me up from my sleep tomorrow, I’ll be ready. You just tell me what scene we are doing. But what I mean is, come on, we all need a change, right? We all need to do something that even shocks your self. Because you want to know whether you can be able to do this or not. So, yeah, that’s a good zone.
Personally, I like to watch psychological thrillers. I admire people being able to think of ideas like those. It’s like reading one of those fiction novels, you just don’t know what’s coming. And that’s what, that’s what moviemaking is about.
