A role in a Madhur Bhandarkar film does not come easy.
Just ask Avani Modi, who is making her Bollywood debut with Calendar Girls, releasing on September 25. Modi, a theatre actress and model from Gujarat, plays a young Pakistani woman, Nazreen Malik, in the film.
“Nazreen is a strong and ambitious girl with Bollywood dreams,” said Modi, who got the role through auditions.
“It’s a lifetime opportunity to be a part of a Madhur Bhandarkar film and I learnt valuable lessons while working on Calendar Girls.”
Bhandarkar, who is known for his hard-hitting yet sensitive stories that centre around women, returns with a story of the life behind the glossy world of calendar models. Calendar Girls is about five young women from different parts of the subcontinent who have been selected to model for a prestigious annual calendar, brought out by a business tycoon and his photographer friend. Making their Bollywood debuts along with Modi are Kyra Dutt, Akanksha Puri, Satarupa Pyne and Ruhi Singh.
For her role, Modi researched online to get the Urdu accent and body language of a Lahore girl right. Initially she was a bit unsure about meeting the expectations of the four-time Indian National Award-winning director, but after few days on the sets under his guidance, Modi’s confidence grew.
“Madhur believes in being spontaneous on the sets, so there was not much preparation otherwise. We had discussions, and he encouraged inputs from us. It had to be natural and casual.”
One scene that still gives her the shivers was filmed in Mauritius. “I was standing on the roof of a yacht in the middle of the ocean. The only company I had was my four co-actors. It was scary being all alone in the middle of the sea,” recalled Modi, who began her film career in 2013 with Tamil film Naan Rajavaga Pogiren. Her second Tamil film, Strawberry, a horror thriller opposite poet-actor-director Pa Vijay, released a fortnight ago. In Strawberry, she plays a scientist who investigates the existence of ghosts.
