Bhagyashri Borse On ‘Kaantha’ And What Her Gentle Smile At The End Meant

When filmmaker Selvamani Selvaraj was casting for Kumari, the young and sensitive refugee from Burma in Kaantha, he was casting for a personality. Bhagyashri Borse, who sees a lot of herself in Kumari, was thrilled when she heard this. “The reference was to be me,” she tells The Hollywood Reporter India.

A film about a film, Kaantha places Borse’s Kumari in the middle of two stubborn men, TK (Dulquer Salmaan), an established actor who butts heads with Ayya (Samuthirakani), a filmmaker and mentor she looks up to. “I only found out much later that he was casting a personality. He wanted someone who was exactly like Kumari. I am someone who thinks from my heart, so the process was the same.”

But Kumari is not all that Borse plays in the film. She plays Saantha, the wife of Dulquer’s character in the film, and also Neeli, the ghost of a woman that briefly haunts Saantha’s husband. Borse’s job was to play these roles with intricate distinction. “We would have a lot of discussions with the filmmaker. If Kumari were a butterfly, Saantha was more of a cow, who was calm, sophisticated and innocent,” she says. But what would that make Neeli? “She was a fox. She just wanted revenge,” Borse smiles.

She channelled the grace of yesteryear acting queens Madhubala, Savitri and Sridevi. The preparation for the film included various discussions with the team, including Dulquer and Selvamani. “Other than being a great co-star, he's a great actor,” she says about Dulquer. “I also wanted to shine alongside him. When I got the script, I was very scared because at that time I didn't know if I could pull it off. Their support pushed me.”

Borse also had the freedom to flesh out her character relevant to the story. A short portion of the film also details the escalating rivalry between Kumari and TK. “There's this scene that covers Saantha's monologue from the top angle, where Neeli gets into her for a split second. I got the lines [for the scene] in the morning. But the scene wasn't supposed to be in the film,” she recalls. “The director told me that he wanted Kumari to come out as a better actor than TK in places because he is insecure about her. But for that to happen, we needed to show her capabilities as an actor. We brainstormed it, and it just happened.” In this delicate scene, Borse gingerly steps in and out of Neeli’s psyche within a flash of a second.

Playing these women with distinct tones was as important as not playing Kumari as a naive babe in the woods. “If something like this happens to anyone, there's some sort of resentment. But Kumari is very selfless. I'd argue she never thought about herself. She kept life simple. It's not that she was dumb, but she had gone through so much in life. She had so much empathy for the two men in her life. Hence, the smile when she dies.”

Does the smile indicate joy or a gnawing disappointment? It indicates her blind love, according to the actor. “In reality, nobody is going to smile while getting killed, but she was that pure. She didn't want him to feel guilty, even though he was killing her. It was to say 'I've forgiven you... and I love you.'”

Roles like these are hard to come by, especially for newcomers like her, she says. "I'm somebody who doesn't like thinking or planning too much, but I want to be part of beautiful stories. I'm looking forward to being part of films that give importance to the writing of female characters."

Borse will next be seen in Andhra King Taluka, a Telugu drama about a fan’s unbridled love for a film star, in which she shares screen space with Ram Pothineni. “After I heard the narration, there was only one thought in my head. I wanted to be part of this beautiful story. At times, you want to be part of a film for a character, but here it was the story. It carries human emotions so beautifully.” Borse describes working on the film to be an incredibly positive experience. “Ram is a supportive co-star and a great friend of mine. A lot of his suggestions helped. We sat together and brainstormed on the love story as well. He is a very positive person.”