If I Have to do Song and Dance, I Better Do it With Sanjay Leela Bhansali: Richa Chadha on Heeramandi

We meet Richa Chadha's Lajjo when she makes her grand entrance into Heeramandi with “Sakal Ban”, a vibrant celebration of spring. Later, we’ll see her tears and heartbreak, but at this moment, there are only smiles and pirouettes. It’s a precious moment in the show because it’s the only time we see the women of Heeramandi united in joy. Lajjo's complexities — her trauma, addiction, and romantic idealism — all come tumbling forth soon after. In the hands of a lesser actor than Chadha, she could have been just a pathetic victim of circumstances, but Lajjo's anguish is raw with sincerity. Even while incidents strip Lajjo of dignity, Chadha weaves a thread of defiant delusion into her performance of this heartbroken woman. Just watch her in the mujra she must perform at her lover’s wedding, for which Lajjo arrives wearing a bridal headdress. 

Film Companion  spoke to the actor-producer about bringing Lajjo to life and for those who have watched Heeramandi, we’ve also got the definitive answer to what exactly happened to Lajjo in that carriage (iykyk). Here are edited excerpts from the interview:

You told me when we met the first time that you had made a playlist with Meena Kumari’s songs and her poetry to find the pathos of this character. But do you also create a backstory? How did you create Lajjo? 

I have a whole process for it, and I've done it from my very first character till now. I think about how she grew up because that is foundational. Does she have good parents? Did she go to an English medium school or a Hindi medium school? How educated is she? In this case, what kind of abandonment issues does she suffer from? Why has she taken to the bottle? Does she feel scared? Basically, if you read the script properly — however bad the script or however good the script is — it gives you a lot of clues into the person. For instance,Lajjo was sold at the age of six by her aunty into the kotha (brothel). That means that she starts to get trained in music and dance at that age. That means she's proficient in that. So now, that is a nugget of information I have to remember as I'm having a breakdown in real-time, that even though she is dancing and completely destroying herself and feeling humiliated in the moment, the movement cannot look inaccurate. … It’s muscle memory. It's like driving a car when you're really upset. If you're crying, you're not going to forget to shift a gear or press the brake just because you're crying, because that becomes second nature. I will find that the footwork has to be on point, even if she's having a breakdown. And the other thing is understanding the psychology of the person. What does it mean to be sold off at the age of six? It is possible that when she became a teenager at 14 or 16, that her virginity was auctioned or whatever they say, “nath utrai” is the term. These things have happened to her. How does that feel? …  At which point does the lie become the truth? Those things are very important for me to build the character. It’s not about how much time you spend — for me it’s not about being on the show for the whole thing. It's to find what leaves the most impact. … People are like, “Oh, Richa's here now she's gonna shoot someone with a gun.” That’s not surprising. If you see me enter a party drunk and do a crazy dance, that's surprising. That was my greed.

You’re making a conscious effort to not get pigeonholed into the “brave” and “bold” woman character.

To be fair, I have played these parts also, and very consciously. I played a sexual harassment public prosecutor in Section 375 (2019), then Madam Chief Minister (2021) is about a Dalit woman trying to get into mainstream politics by hook or by crook, and it becomes a character study. Even a commercial show like Inside Edge is about a woman trying to find her place in a man's world. So there's a lot of feminism, a lot of gender politics, a lot of social stuff, like with films like Masaan (2015)...That perception is there. And to be fair, I enjoy it. Because I feel like an actor should also have a brain and make little little contributions (to society) in that sense. 

But when Sanjay Leela Bhansali calls you and you're like, this guy will do unrequited love, song and dance and everything in the best way. If I have to do it somewhere, I better do it with him.

You have worked with Sanjay Leela Bhansali before. What has changed over time?

He hasn’t changed. Film or long-form like a show, he’s still that passionate and that invested. I definitely have changed. Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela (2013) was my third or fourth film, so I was not confident as I am today; not just of my own skill, but also of my place in the business. I find that he's become more collaborative. For my mujra (dance), he let me pick the song. He made me hear three or four songs, and then he asked me, “Which one is your character likely to sing?” What would a heartbroken, delusional, drunk woman sing, who's really laying out all the cards and laying her soul bare? She will say, “Masoom dil hai mera issey tod diya jaye (my heart is naive, it should be broken).” 

How do you find the defining moments in your performance? 

For “Sakal Ban”, initially, we were not meant to be dancing in the song. It just happened. It was a basant (spring) song. There were the other kathak dancers over there, they were supposed to be dancing. But he just made it to be like, she's (Lajjo) come back from somewhere after a heartbreak and she sees these people and she's relieved and there's a ceremony that is about to happen, so they're all coming together to celebrate. It’s probably the only happy song. 

In that song, she is all there. But you don’t know what’s in her pouch, maybe she is carrying a hip flask? She could be a high functioning alcoholic. That song is more like an interaction. I tried not to do them like steps. It is like a conversation between these women. Even for “Masoom Dil”, I was more focused on the scene. 

When you work with Bhansali, it's very easy to be taken by the splendour and the opulence of the set pieces and the costumes. Does it help your performance or do you struggle to keep up? 

You neither get help from it or fight it, but it can really put a lot of pressure on people sometimes. For instance, when I was doing my mujra, that set was constructed for that bit. You enter the set and you see 300 extras, real musicians in the back, and you have to perform. It can be daunting just in terms of the math of it. You better be good at what you're doing.

How does it feel to be on the sets of Heeramandi, not just as an actor, but as an indie film producer? 

What I've learned from Mr Bhansali is that his insistence on quality is so high that he will eventually get what he wants in terms of the budget. What do directors fight for? They fight for budgets, to be able to execute their vision, to be able to build the right set, to be able to have authentic jewellery — we are wearing real jewellery. We didn't have to buy any of it, but we had to source it. But even that is very hard. All the costumes are expensive vintage fabrics. You see those textures unfold beautifully on screen. And that's because it's him that's making it. He has that much licence, and he has proved himself time and time again. He can do this world and this splendour and the period better than anyone else. So much so that I would say that when other people attempt it their thing almost looks fake or it looks like they are trying to copy him. 

—SPOILER ALERT—

There’s some contention over how Lajjo dies. Please resolve this for us and set the record straight. How does Lajjo die? 

She dies of heartbreak. Because for me I didn't want it to be like a Bollywood death. … And to make that believable, I had to escalate the breakdown to that point when the final dance is happening, when she's really humiliated and controlling her rage and her tears and doing the circle round trolley shot. After that, it just seems to me there's no coming back.