Sonali Bendre
, who is gearing up for her appearance in the upcoming second season of The
Broken News
, opened up about her past experiences where she touched upon her role in the 1998 film
Duplicate
, in which she portrayed a
grey character
.
She expressed how the initial excitement and challenge of the role gradually transformed into a sense of being reduced to a
caricature
rather than embodying the nuanced character she had envisioned.
Recalling her time working on the Shah Rukh Khan starrer, Sonali told India Today, “We started preparing for the role in that way and also started shooting it accordingly, but slowly, as things moved, I felt I became a caricature and not really the grey character I was supposed to play.”
The actress also shared the valuable lesson she learned from this experience, emphasizing the unpredictable nature of storytelling in the film industry. “Every time a Duplicate song is played and people mention the film, the thing that I remember the most is the fact that how much a story can get de-railed and how much you can start with something and where it goes. And, for me, that was a huge learning,” she remarked.
Sonali Bendre: ‘When I see lines on my face, of course I get insecure, but I also think that I have earned these. I don’t want to play a 20-year-old!’
As she embarks on what she calls her second innings, Sonali expressed her desire to break free from
stereotypes
and explore characters that challenge the conventional norms. “As time goes by, you start thinking whether I misinterpreted something or it was the other way around. But then, as you go forward, sometimes you do things for that paycheck, but other than that, in my second innings, I don’t want to be slotted and boxed, and I want to do characters that break this stereotype,” she said.
Released in 1998, Duplicate, featuring Sonali Bendre alongside
Shah Rukh
Khan and
Juhi Chawla
, remains a significant milestone in her cinematic journey.
