WEB SERIES
When Sezal Sharma saunters in at the quiet Coffee Shop at the back road of Lokhandwala one fine afternoon, almost every eye at the venue silently but swiftly darts towards the pretty, slim and sexy girl who has come a long way from the time she had come down from Punjab where she was quite active working in music videos and movies in Punjabi language. We ask the waiter to lower the volume of the loud Western music which is blaring at the venue and order two glasses of ice cold coffee and begin our tete-a-tete in right earnest.
At the outset, Sezal talks about how she landed her role as Sunaina, a docile housewife, who is very supportive of her two- timing husband, played by Yuvraj Parashar in Kapil Sharma’s latest web series Love Life & Screw Ups along with a host of well known actresses like Zeenat Aman, Diandra Soares, Dolly Thakur etc.
“Yuvraj Parashar, who is the producer of the web series and I became friends when we were learning dancing at the same Institute. We had no other alternative but to choose each other as partners whenever there was a dance competition because both of us are extremely good at dancing. We were also attending the same gym. One day when he asked me if I would like to be part of a web series that he was planning to launch, I decided to be a part of it but unfortunately for Yuvraj I was shooting for a film called Love Yatra in Punjab and hence could not spare time for his shooting.”
“I have worn a bikini and done a lip to lip kiss with Dipanshkar in GPL which is quite similar to Hate Story 2.”
However for some reasons known only to Yuvraj, the shooting of the web series could not start as per the original scheduled plan and by the time Sezal was back in Mumbai,Yuvraj rang her up once again asking her if she could spare her dates and this time around she was game. Sezal continues, “My role in the web series wasn’t at all challenging for me as an actress or a difficult role to tackle but Yuvraj promised me that my role will be meatier in the second season of the web series when I leave my husband and decide to leave an in dependent life of my own.”
Is she game to play the bold role of a sexy lesbian seductress like Diana Sanders is essaying in Love Life & Screw Ups? I ask Sezal gingerly. She quips as a matter of fact, “I was offered by Yuvaraj the role that he had planned to give Diana but I put my foot down immediately, not because I am a prude but because I am ready to do a role like that only if a big director offers it to me in a big banner film, not otherwise”.
Sezal is playing the lead role in a film called Game Paise Ladki (GPL) which she says is a content -oriented woman-centric film starring her with Dipanshkar Ranjeet and Navin Prabhakar in the lead. “The film GPL was selected for screening at the Cannes Film Festival last year and I am quite excited as well as thrilled because the producers have told me that the leading producer cum distributor Jayantilal Gada is going to release it by August this year.”
In GPL, directed by Sachin Agarwal, Sezal says she is playing the most challenging role that she has ever played in her career till date. “I have even worn a sizzling bikini and indulged in an extremely passionate lip to lip kiss with Dipanshkar in GPL which is quite similar to Hate Story 2 because the script demanded that a shy, moody, simple, mysterious and silent gharelu girl suddenly take a 360 degree change in her life even going to the extent of becoming a cold blooded murderer in it”. It is quite interesting to note that while Dipanshkar was quite nervous to kiss Sezal on the lip especially because a senior actor like Zakir Hussain was also a part of the frame, it was Sezal who assured him that nothing will happen and it was quite a normal take and made him at ease. The shot was taken in one single take”, exults Sezal, with a giggle.
“When I refused him politely, he told me that he would cast me but not pay me and I agreed to work in his film for free.”
Sezal wants to get her teeth into challenging roles which extract the best out of her. “I want to do every possible character on earth. I liked Kangana Ranaut in Queen, Vidya Balan in The Dirty Picture and Kareena Kapoor in Jab We Met. Unfortunately I have yet to bump into a director who is willing to write a role which he feels will fit me to the T and only I can do justice to it. I am open to even ultra glamorous roles in films. Nowadays each and every new girl is ready to expose on the screen. I am no exception to the rule and have no objection to the extent I am required to expose as long as I do not end looking vulgar in the film.”
Sezal says she is aware of the syndrome of the ubiquitous casting couch in Bollywood but is not at all perturbed by it.“Casting Couch is there in the film industry but let me tell you no one tries to force himself on to you. You are given options and you do not necessarily get a role only via the casting couch because here each and every one is going all out for his or her own faayda. Once a top director who is known for his Magic Midas touch told me that he would be ready to cast me in his film provided I was ready to compromise and sleep with him. When I refused him politely, he told me that he would cast me but not pay me and I agreed to work in his film for free”.
Sezal who says that her favorite stars are Priyanka Chopra, Kangana Ranaut, Kareena Kapoor etc besides Aamir Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, asserts that she is single and happy but right now does not want to mingle at all. “I do not need any male company for the next two to three years. It is my fervent hope that I do not end up with someone who is very filmi to the core as my life partner as and when someone comes into my life.”
Sezal candidly confesses that no one can teach a person acting. “You can only learn the technique of acting. I have been growing day by day by trial and error method as an actress. I was not at all ready for a career in actress and became an actress merely by accident. No one in my family ever forced me to be an actress or pushed me to be one and I groomed myself slowly and steadily. Initially, I did not even know how to wear the right clothes or whom to meet to further my career as I was a desi Punjabi girl from Jalandhar. And to top it, I graduated in Science”, Sezal says as a matter of fact.
Right now, while Sezal is eagerly waiting for the second season of the hot web series Love Life & Screw Ups to get launched with her in a different avatar as a mod girl, she has also signed up for a big project by working a lot on herself and is confident that she will be able to hit big time especially because unlike the nascent Sezal of yore, today she has a lot of experience and that has made her fit.
