Payel Sarkar is unarguably one of the most stylish divas in the Bengali film industry. Over the last decade, the soft-spoken 34 year old actress has carved out a niche for herself in the tinsel town with her performances in Prem Amar, Bojhena Shey Bojhena, Chotushkoneand Ebar Shabor. Payel will be seen next in Kamaleshwar Mukherjee’s ‘Mukhomukhi’, stepping into the character of Anasua- a devoted home-maker, pitted against her inner self.
Dressed in a monochrome culotte jumpsuit, Payel spoke to Indulge at the trailer launch of her new film that took place last week.
“Mukhomukhi is a film that goes beyond the mainstream format and experiments a lot in terms of story-telling, space and characterisation. The film was shot in a 360 degree set with a non-specific space and a theatrical pattern was followed,” says the brown eyed beauty, who agreed that making this film was a challenging task as the technique and format was not common here.
The film is based on a play called ‘Abayab’, a brain-child of Mukherjee himself and revolves around the lives of an urban, modern day couple Sounak and Anasua. Sarkar’s character Anasua is an educated, opinionated woman of today. A home-maker, she finds herself torn between her sense of individuality and her marriage life. Jisshu Sengupta plays the role of her husband and the film also stars Anjan Dutt, Rajatava Dutta, Gargee Roychowdhury, Shaheb Bhattacharjee and Ushasie Chakraborty in pivotal roles. “Anasua is extremely caring and affectionate. However, sometimes, being a bit too much of anything can make the other person involved feel claustrophobic. These are some of the conflicts and complications this character is going through,” shares the actor.
Payel made her debut with Shudhu Tumi in 2004, and since then it has been a whirwind journey for her. She has just returned from London after shooting for actor director Parambrata Chattopadhyay’s six-episode web series ‘Sharate Aaj’- a thriller-romance for Zee5. “I am really excited about it since I worked for a national portal. The character that I’ll be playing is very matured and subtle. We really had a nice time shooting for the series and we never felt like we are not in our hometown. It is always nice to work with Param as a director and as an actor,” expresses the JU graduate, who shared screen with him in Jaani Dekha Hobe In 2011 and Chotushkone in 2014.
When asked about why she is so rarely seen on the silver screen, she stresses that she gets offered lots of roles but for her being remembered for the performance is imperative. “For me, being recalled for my skills is more important than the box-office collections of my films. I do not want to exceed the three to four films a year limit, and get drowned in the quantity over quality race.”
Coming year, the tolly-star will be seen in ‘Jamai Bodol’ by Surinder Films as well as three other yet untitled projects.
Mukhomukhi will release on February 1.