Prachi Desai, a well-known Indian film actress and former television actress with millions of fans all over the world, recently joined NewsX for a candid interview as part of NewsX India A-List. Prachi returned to acting after a long break with her suspense-thriller movie ‘Silence… Can You Hear It?’ released on Zee5 on 26 March and is currently enjoying its success.
Talking about her recent film’s success, Prachi said, “I think so far the response has been great. Also, I’ve done a film after a while so I think that excitement definitely for me is special and the effort actually into it was was to do something different because it’s been a while and I think that has paid off. Actually it’s been a unanimous response. The one thing I’m consistently hearing every day from people is that it’s really nice to see me back after a gap. So, yeah that’s really nice to hear because that sort of thing gives you a sense of hope. It also reminds me that you know people do want to watch me and they’re happy to see me again and that I think, there cannot be any other feeling better than that”.
When asked about what convinced her to say yes to come back, she expressed, “It actually just ticked all the boxes, there aren’t any specific requirements for every film that you do, but I think it’s just the basics so whether it was a good engaging script- that was a tick, a new or different role in some different light- that was a tick and it’s a debutant director, a female director so I’ve always wanted to work with female directors and I feel like we need more female directors in this industry and there is so in this movie. So just tick tick tick all the reasons and I think for me some kind of lean mention was needed which is why I took my while to say yes to something and it was just as simple as silence, it was something as simple as this role for this film to come my way where I immediately said yes”
Sharing more insights from her experience, Prachi said, “I love it, I love thrillers in general, I love espionage thrillers, I love mysteries like murder mysteries. I also do love horror and I don’t think you’ll believe this fact but I love watching horror and yes I think that this genre is something that I watch a lot. I think because with thrillers, it just keeps you at the edge of your seat most of the time if it’s written well, it’s directed well and this particular one was a page-turner. When I was reading the script I just needed to know what’s gonna happen next and that’s a good sign.”
Expressing her views on working with Manoj Bajpai and being on sets with him, she mentioned, “Manoj sir is an institution known in acting in films and everything. I honestly would just keep observing him the whole time on the set, trying not to creep him out of course. Just like watching his performance looking at how he prepares for every particular scene and all of that, I feel like one thing is definitely not enough for you to you know. there is so much talent in that man, there’s so much going on in his head. I think that it rubs off very very nicely on all of us, on all the cool stuff so you always just want to also do well in the scene because he’s so good and he’s a very selfless actor.:
She further added, “I mean he’s not selfish at all. He makes sure that everybody in the scene is equally involved and if he ever feels like you can do something or that will make your performance better, he definitely shares that with everyone. Also just the kind of involvement and dedication he has, I mean he’s such a busy actor, also he’s someone who’s done far more work than all of us in the film put together. Even then, he would just be involved with his thousand per cent and probably work as hard as we did. The number of hours that we worked, he doesn’t shy away from the hard work at all, so that’s very refreshing to see.”
On taking up a new role, Desai said, “It was totally unplanned, actually I think that’s how an actor’s life is, unpredictable sometimes, interesting sometimes, just weird but it definitely wasn’t planned. However, there came a point when I just felt like I needed to you know maybe detour from the roles that I’m doing and do something slightly different. It may not be earth-shattering but I definitely needed that shift, and yeah I don’t know if the casting directors are lazy, or if the filmmakers are lazy because they feel like oh! this person does something well so we keep on giving them the same role that makes their job easier because they don’t have to work hard with you to do something different.”
“So, that sort of thing happened were very repetitive things came my way and I really enjoyed my space for a while. I made the most of it, however, it felt like I can do so much more and I needed people to open up to that. When that did not happen, I mean you’re an actor, if you’re not a producer yourself, all you can do is just probably wait or try and add something different. But you only have this much that you can do within that scope because you can’t probably make a different film for yourself. So, I think that the waiting period took a little longer than expected. Certain things of course, in that span, certain things that were very interesting did not materialize for some reason, and for an actor, you just never know how months have passed by or a year or two years or more and then of course, there was covid. One whole year, the entire year went into that. So, it was unplanned but overall I think now I feel like it’s just been worth it”.