Renuka Shahane is quite selective about the kind of projects she does. The actress says she has a family and two kids to look after, which is already 24x7 job. That's why her last directorial Rita released 10 years ago, and there have been intervals between her acting projects. “For me, to balance everything both home and work has been very important. That’s why the long gap. Now, the kids have grown up and I will find more time to do things. It’s a difficult to maintain balance,” she says, adding that she is not the kind of person who can do too many things simultaneously.
As both her sons are teenagers, she says it’s very important to be there for them for their well-being and growth. “It’s not something imposed on me or I am feeling bad about it. This is a choice I made when I had my kids and I’m happy about it,” says the actress who has starred in a medical humour web series Starting Troubles. The series started streaming from February 16 on the newly launched healthcare infotainment platform Hiiih.
On medical dramas
Based on real life events as described in the best-selling book on medical innovations by Dr Jagdish Chaturvedi Inventing Medical Devices, the series is directed by Abhinav Kamal. Renuka, who plays the role of Dr Kavita Gowda, says, “She is a very strict doctor and expects a certain level of professionalism in her interns and resident officers. On the face of it, she can make life miserable for people around, but as the story moves ahead, one would get to see how she is a mentor to her students who want to do something different.”
The actress adds that it was an interesting character to play because she needed to have a command over the medical jargon, which was quite challenging. “When you watch international series like Grey’s Anatomy and others, all these actors are so fluent with medical terms. It rarely happens here and we do not have too many medical dramas. Dr Chaturvedi is a practising surgeon, so he made sure we got the terms right and I am happy when he told me that I sounded like his mentor,” she says.
Not many know that Dr Chaturvedi is a stand up comedian and that’s the reason, says Renuka, he has balanced his practise, stand up comedy, theatre and innovations in the story. “Otherwise medical dramas tend to be very serious. You look at doctors and feel it’s all about health and serious issues. We rarely look at it with a sense of humour. When that happens we can put the message across in the right manner,” says the actress, adding that she hasn’t read the book before working on the series. She says she liked the script because it wasn’t a linear narrative but the story was going back and forth, which made it more interesting.
We have mostly seen the actress play intense characters, but she enjoys playing light-hearted and comic roles too. “It’s nice explore that part of you because as an actor you are not offered such roles quite often. I like playing characters which have a little bit of humour to it. Whether it’s What the Folks or Starting Troubles, you are catering to the youth so it has to be catchy and funny. Also, the atmosphere on the set is also relaxed and you are laughing about something or the other, which is important,” she adds. The cast also includes Kurush Deboo, Anushka, Rajesh PI and others.
Directing a web film
Renuka has recently finished shooting her debut web directorial Tribhanga. The Netflix original film stars Kajol, Tanvi Azmi, Mithila Palkar and is being backed by Ajay Devgn Productions. She says Kajol was a dream to work, and her behaviour both on and off screen determined how the entire unit would function.
She adds,“Directing such diverse actors was quite exciting because each one was unique. Especially for me as an actor, it was wonderful directing such fabulous actors. They are such good actors that it was nice bringing out the nuances. All of them had technical knowledge so I could concentrate on others aspects. I didn’t have to work too much on them, which was good because it was such a tight schedule.”
She shares that she has spent a considerable amount of time on the script of Tribhanga. “The script was selected for the Sundance Mumbai Mantra Screenwriters workshop so the journey began with mentoring, and it went through a lot of changes. I have written many drafts over last three years, and then took it to the NFDC co-production market and got a very good feedback from lot of people from across the world. For me, the script is key.”
The biggest difference between theatrical and web stories is the freedom that the latter offers. Agreeing to it, she says, “It gives a lot of freedom to the kind of stories you are telling. There is lot of scope. It’s not just about having an edge, but there are certain stories that for a general release with all the marketing and PR budget, one has to decide if it’s viable or not. If you decide to make something which is slightly unconventional, then people have to decide whether they want to take the risk or not.”
She adds that with the OTT platforms, which reaches out to 190 countries or more, the market is huge and therefore, it’s a different ball game. “You can tell stories which are rooted but at the same time have universal appeal. That is why Tribhanga was correct for the digital platform,” she signs off.
