Supriya Pathak: ‘OTT has given us a break from watching the heroes and heroines dancing around the trees’

Playing any role comes naturally to Supriya Pathak. She can easily be called the ‘Mother India’ of OTT. Though there is a lot of change in mothers then and mothers now, she plays each role differently and does justice to them. In a conversation with Firstpost, Supriya Pathak talks about her new role as Sarla Joshi in Home Shanti and how television started with a bang, but couldn’t fill up the expectation of the audiences and slowly died. Now OTT has filled up that space with a global audience and it’s a great medium to have. She feels that bringing about the uniqueness of every character that she plays is the most challenging bit.

Home Shanti will stream on Disney + Hotstar from 6th May. It’s a slice of life drama and the trailer has already received a big thumbs up from the audience. Excerpts from the interview:

On playing Sarla Joshi in Home Shanti.

 Sharla Joshi, the character that I am playing in Home Shanti is about a middle-class lady, very confident about herself, having worked very hard all her whole life. She is a self-made person in that sense. She takes care of the family like all Indian women. She is very much a normal working woman and she wants the best for her family. And she is ready to work hard enough to get it.

How much do you relate to Sarla Joshi?

I have been playing all kinds of women and I am a woman myself. And honestly, I connect a lot with women. I interact with a lot of women in my building or my vicinity, in my house and with my house help. So, I am very aware of what women want from life. Every character of the woman that I play there is something that is relatable or is a part of me or a person that I have seen around me. I try to do every role differently; one woman is never the same as the other for me. There is a uniqueness about each character and I try to bring that out.

On doing mother’s role for a very long time…

Being a mother in real life is the most satisfying experience for a woman. I have seen so many kinds of mothers and relationship that they share is different with their children. I never get bored of playing a mother. It is a beautiful relationship.

Everybody is a hero on the OTT platform and each and every character has an important role, what do you have to say about that change?

I think this is a great movement in Indian cinema where every character is important. It is a great opportunity for an actor. It is good for the filmmakers too because they are able to tell stories which one would have always wanted to do being entertainers. Nothing gives me more satisfaction than entertaining my audiences with different characters which we were not able to do when we had only cinema. When television came in that was the time television gave us that opportunity. We used to have lovely shows on TV like Tamas and Buniyaad, Karamchand, Hum Log and more. But at one point that stopped and then came in that similar kind of long drawn out shows with not much variety in the content. Therefore, television lost its meaning and we didn’t have anything worthwhile that we could do on TV. They all became similar stories.  That was the time when we didn’t have any other outlet. Today, OTT has given us that outlet. We have come to a point with the help of OTT where we can tell a lot more stories which we couldn’t do with television. Most importantly, OTT is a global platform, so now you are not just competing with yourself and within the country, but with the world. Quality of OTT is much better. It is a great medium to have.

Do you ever feel, had this OTT platform been there during the beginning of your career you could have done a lot more for the craft of acting?

We did have television. When I started my career with television, it was a great platform for us. But it changed and to my mind, it lost its meaning. Now we have been given another opportunity.

Ageism is big in Bollywood and there was a time when women actors were not getting enough powerful roles. But now with OTT even a romantic film or show can be made around all ages, not just youngsters. Isn’t it a big change brought about by the digital platform?

I personally feel that this transformation was already happening when television started. But as craftsmen, we need to understand that we have to give different types of content to our audience because that is what the audience of today wants. We should remember that we are competing with the world. Now we don’t think of films and shows where the hero and heroine are dancing around the trees. That mindset is not there. Now we have films which have got nothing to do with the hero or heroine or even love. When we are talking about competing globally, it is time we find content from our side which is interesting and I just hope we will keep doing that with the digital platform.

Now ageism doesn’t matter because we are not talking about one singular pattern. We are talking about varied content-based stories. And when we are doing this, then, of course, we will have much more interesting characters. Then nothing matters – your age or looks. That is a great change and I really keep my fingers crossed that this method of storytelling should continue. And exactly what happened with TV, they brought about a change. We didn’t need to tell stories only about young people. We could tell stories about anybody. But somehow TV got messed up. Television couldn’t sustain that. I hope that doesn’t happen with OTT and I am sure that is not going to happen because, with streaming platforms, we are not talking only about India.

You have been a part of an audio show, tell us about your experience.

It was a great experience to go through. I personally have a very different view about books and reading. I really love reading and I enjoy it thoroughly. Reading to me is a whole process and to have a book in my hand is a happy feeling. It puts me in my world of imagination. But when I am listening to an audio show, the voice is actually telling me what to think and feel. So, I am not very sure whether I will be able to do it again because I believe that a book should be read until and unless you have a problem with your eyes. I do feel that this book is a ‘me’ time. And I believe that young mothers should encourage their kids to read.

Watch Home Shanti official trailer here:

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