Shriya Saran says playing Nandini last time in Drishyam 3 took its toll: ‘A heavy feeling’
Shriya Saran has been playing Nandini Salgaonkar for 11 years now, but returning to the character for each installment of the Drishyam franchise has never been as simple as remembering what she did in the previous film. In an exclusive conversation with SCREEN, the actor opened up about revisiting Nandini across the three parts of the franchise, working with Ajay Devgn, and how the entire cast and crew was emotional on the last day of Drishyam: The Conclusion shoot.
Shriya plays the onscreen wife of Ajay Devgn’s character, Vijay Salgaonkar; when asked about her experience of working with him, she shared, “His eyes are so strong and expressive, and even a little eye movement says so much. His also has a very interesting way of speaking and carrying it. He makes it look like he didn’t do any work, it’s just natural for him.”
Whereas, for her own preparation, Shriya stated that she has to do immense work. “For me, I really have to work hard. I have to understand the backstory, what’s the tone, whose emotion it’s coming with. How can I react to that line? So, I think about all of that, but for him, he just comes in like that, ready, and he nails the shot. So we’re like, this should be illegal,” she said.
Shriya went on to praise Ajay Devgn not just as an actor but as a co-star. “But every time I work with Ajay, how he takes his time in a scene, how he understands the flow of the film, how he uses his eyes, that’s amazing. He’s an incredible actor but also very generous with other actors and works well with them.”
In Drishyam 3, the emotion was helplessness
There has been a considerable gap between Drishyam 2 and Drishyam: The Conclusion, and Nandini’s emotional journey had changed yet again. Speaking about it, Shriya said that the “feeling of knowing that someone needs help but being unable to understand it at the moment when it matters most” became the central emotion for her to play Nandini in the final part. She then connected that thought directly to Nandini and Anju’s relationship in the film.
“What if, in that moment, if this mother could see that something’s wrong, and if she had asked Anju what really happened, and she told her, this story would have been totally different. And I think somewhere every parent can relate to this feeling because we all must have had that moment in our lives,” she added.
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‘Nandini speaks very little, so I had to speak with my eyes’
Another challenge for Shriya to play Nandini was that her character isn’t someone who explains herself through long dialogues. Much of what she feels has to come through her body language, eyes and silences. “There’s a lot more you can express. But when you don’t have lines, you can only speak with your eyes, which is quite interesting too. So both have their own pros and cons. Abhishek (Pathak) saw this character as someone with few words. I think the single line ‘dum ghut ta hai‘ (I feel suffocated) that tries to explain the character completely,” she said.
‘It was hard. It was a heavy feeling, you know, like this is it, this is the end’
For Shriya, the biggest emotional moment came when she realised that Drishyam: The Conclusion could actually be the last time she would play Nandini. She recalled the last scenes, the family’s final meal and looking around the set, aware that the characters she had lived with for 11 years could be coming to an end. “Yeah, I remember when we were shooting, I was looking at the whole set, seeing that dining table where we had the last meal, I mean, the whole family singing together for the shoot. We had the last shot, it was hard. It was a heavy feeling, you know, like this is it, this is the end. Then there was also a very beautiful feeling because we knew we had made a really good film. But the fact that we might never do this again… These characters won’t be found there. That’s also tough,” said Shriya.
On how motherhood changed Shriya’s understanding of Nandini
Drishyam 2 was particularly emotional for Shriya because she was a new mother at the time. Her daughter was only eight months old, and the actor said the film’s team was extremely supportive of her situation. “So, we usually decide the shoot based on Radha’s sleep time…and when we were shooting in Goa, as soon as my shoot was over, they would send me home. So, I got to be with my daughter, and I have beautiful memories of being with her,” she recalled.
About Drishyam: The Conclusion
Apart from Ajay and Shriya, the Abhishek Pathak directorial also features Tabu, Ishita Dutta and Mrunal Jadhav reprising their roles, while Prakash Raj and Jaideep Ahlawat are among the new additions to the cast.
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