Mumbai: Malayalam actor Pearle Maaney has said she wasn’t sure whether director Anurag Basu was happy with her performance. She was talking about her performance in the first schedule of her maiden Hindi film, Ludo. Pearle Maaney is popular for hosting TV shows and featuring in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam movies. She said she was surprised when Basu approached her for the dark crime comedy.
The actor is best known for 2015 Malayalam short film Punchirikku Parasparam, Telugu romantic-comedy Kalyana Vaibhogame and 2018 Malayalam sci-fi film Who.
Ludo follows four different stories. The film also features Abhishek Bachchan, Aditya Roy Kapur, Rajkummar Rao, Pankaj Tripathi and Fatima Sana Shaikh.
Maaney said she was chosen for the project without any audition. It made her doubtful about the Barfi director being aware about her work.
“I was unsure if this was really happening till the first schedule was over. Even during the first schedule, I thought if he’s not happy with my performance he might change me. This is because I never had an audition with him,” Maaney said.
Maaney said she often wondered what convinced Basu that she could pull off her role. Her role barely has any dialogues. “I had this question constantly, because I hadn’t performed before, had no background in Bollywood. I couldn’t understand why he cast me among all the big actors. But he had this strong conviction,” the actor added.
In the film, Maaney plays a Malayali nurse whose fortune changes overnight after a chance encounter. Maaney said she realised later that she was cast to reflect authenticity on-screen. She is also glad that a Hindi-speaking actor was not made to play a South Indian.
In the film, Maaney’s track, co-starring Rohit Saraf, runs parallel to the other three stories. It builds up to the inevitable face-off when all the four worlds collide with each other.
Maaney said she was fascinated the way Basu helmed the film. With bare minimum story brief, Maaney said she saw the director build the entire Ludo world like magic.
“Once I saw how he was working with everyone, that he likes to experiment on set, I realised he had a lot going on in his head. To bring together four different stories is not easy. It’s his bravery to think of a story like Ludo and take up this incredible challenge,” she pointed out.
“It’s not even a movie where one can delegate work to assistant directors. There were times when even the ADs (assistant directors) were clueless. It was all in his head and it was wonderful how he pulled it off,” she added.
Much like the rest of the cast, Maaney said she knew nothing about the film when she came on board. The actor said Basu’s secrecy sometimes extended even till the time an actor was about to give his or her shot.
“When the shot would get ready and we’d ask him what to do. Even then he’d say ‘go in front of the camera, I’ll tell you.” That’s how we worked. He wouldn’t give us a tough scene without briefing us. However, if it was a light scene or wanted some subtle expression he wouldn’t give to many details,” Maaney informed.
Ludo is scheduled to be released on Netflix, November 12.
