Shriya Pilgaonkar is gearing up for the release of her upcoming legal drama titled Guilty Minds. The show also features Varun Mitra in the lead role along with other episodic primaries, which will be released on Amazon Prime Video on April 22. Prior to this, the actress has web shows like Mirzapur, The Gone Game, Crackdown, and more to her credit. The 32-year-old actress, who is the daughter of actors Sachin and Supriya Pilgaonkar, in an exclusive conversation with News18.com, spoke about how excited her parents are for her web show. Shriya also dished on whether she feels pressure to meet the benchmark set by her parents.
On being asked if she has pressure to perform well, due to the achievements of her parents, she said, “There is no way I can possibly even begin to compare my performance and myself and the legacy that they have created. I don’t even think of it like that. I have been brought up in a way, that any pressure that I put on is just self-inflicted pressure. Yes, I want to make them proud and I want to do that by being good at my craft and that is all I want to do.”
“I love taking their opinion in anything I do. I make sure they watch it and both of them. Aai and Papa both have a way of giving me feedback, which is always honest. So, I can’t wait for them to watch this. They are most excited to watch this and I haven’t seen them this excited yet,” she told News18.com.
In Guilty Minds, Shriya will be seen essaying the role of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) lawyer. While talking about the preparation for her character, Shriya said, “Well, there are two aspects of it. The first is that I wanted to play a lawyer effortlessly and then my personal aspect. In terms of both these aspects, it was very important for me to play Kashaf Quaze as naturally as someone who does this in and out. In court, she is feisty and very passionate about the cases that she takes up.”
“She works in Public Interest Litigation, and in terms of her personal life, she is a closed person. She is very loyal and very protective of her family. So you see Kashaf as strong and vulnerable at the same time. It was fun and interesting to play the character. Also, Kashaf and Deepak (essayed by Varun Mitra) are friends from college, there is also an interesting fiction because many a time they get to argue in court. So that personal professional line almost blurs on and off,” adds Shriya.
The legal drama also sees Varun Mitra who was last seen in Rhea Chakraborty co-starrer film Jalebi. Varun plays the role of a corporate lawyer, Deepak Rana. Varun also shared the details about the preparations for his role. Speaking about the research and book reading that the duo did for the preparations for the legal drama. Sriya and Varun said in unison, “We didn’t read even a single book.”
Varun added, “We read the script many times and we had eaten the brains of the director Shefali (Bhushan). She comes from a family of lawyers, her father, her family and her friends are all lawyers. We asked her a lot of questions about the courts, people, and how they take on the cases. We visited courts and observed sessions. We went to the library and cafeteria.”
“And the thing is when you enter a court your spine automatically turns straight. So that was a very important part of preparing for the role, and there was a proper decorum in the court. We went there just to absorb it and believe that we belong to this world and we can fight such cases. Speaking to lawyer friends also helped,” said Varun.
Guilty Minds has been co-directed by Jayant Digambar Somalkar and produced by Karan Grover, Antara Banerjee, and Naved Farooqui. Apart from Shriya Pilgaonkar and Varun Mitra, the cast of Guilty Minds includes Namrata Sheth, Sugandha Garg, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Satish Kaushik, Benjamin Gilani, Virendra Sharma, Diksha Juneja, Pranay Pachauri, Deepak Kalra and Chitrangada Satrupa in pivotal roles.
