Netflix's latest offering, Guilty, introduced us to several newcomers and among them is Akansha Ranjan Kapoor who plays the role of a vocal small-town girl named Tanu who brings her Dhanbad identity at the drop of a hat.
Talking about what brought her on board for Guilty, Akansha puts it bluntly - ‘you don’t choose your first film, it chooses you’. The actress who has been giving auditions since she finished high school says, “I had auditioned for the film and when I got the call saying that I have been selected, I didn’t know the head or tail of the film. But, when I heard the script and my role in the film, I thought to myself that I lucked out. People have to trust you to give you the part of Tanu. Actors usually get such parts on their third or fourth film, and I got it on my first, I made my debut with it…”
While many of us are familiar with Akansha Ranjan Kapoor, thanks to the social media feed of her best friend, Alia Bhatt, the actress has been obsessed with films since childhood. “I was acting before I knew the word acting. I would run around the house saying ‘wo mere peeche bhag raha hai’, ‘chodo mujhe’ and all the signature dialogues that I would watch on television. I would get yelled at by my mom because I would take her saree and pretend as if someone is pulling it… so, I have always been doing that and when I grew up, I realised that I can get money for it (laughs).” However, it wasn’t easy to spend years auditioning and the actress says that one must have a thick skin as the struggling phase is bound to ‘test your patience and self-confidence’.
When it comes to her character in Guilty, Akansha found the emotional and mental preparation a bit challenging since her personality is very different from her character, Tanu and she had to empathise with her and not allow herself to judge her even for a minute to do justice to her role. But, there is something that she also took home from her debut role. “I am very conscious of my body and what I am wearing, whereas Tanu isn’t like that. She taught me to be comfortable.”
Although tight-lipped about her next project, Akansha reveals that she is in talks for a film.
With inputs from Paulami Sen.