I've Never Played a Character so Flawed and Suppressed as Adah in Tandav: Amyra Dastur

Amyra Dastur is part of the ensemble that makes up the cast of Amazon Prime Video’s new web series Tandav. While she is excited to be part of a political thriller alongside actors like Saif Ali Khan and Dimple Kapadia, Amyra had to act in a completely unfamiliar space for the first time. We’ve all seen the chirpy, bubbly side of her, but in this series she is playing a role with a dark past.

The 27-year-old actress talks about the challenges she faced while working on Tandav.

Is Tandav a totally new territory for you?

My character Adah has a very dark past, which makes her a slightly gray character. She’s a little paranoid and very isolated. Her past affects not just her future, but the future of 2-3 other characters as well. It’s really gritty. I’ve never played a character so flawed and suppressed. So it was definitely a challenge for me. It was very hard for me to identify with her first, but then, with a lot of research and reading about how some people have survived some of the things that she has gone through, I actually became very, very close to her.

How difficult was it to pull off this role?

It was definitely my most challenging character. I’ve always played characters I’ve identified with. Even if not completely, there’s always been some element of me in my characters. But with Adah it’s completely different. It’s somebody who not only have I never met in my life, but somebody who I couldn’t even understand in the beginning. So understanding her, thinking of how she’d behave in a certain situation, my whole mindset had to change. I isolated myself from everyone for about a month. I didn’t get out of my house, didn’t meet anybody. I shut myself off even from social media. It actually took an emotional toll on me.

Do you worry about getting lost in the crowd in a multi-starrer?

I’m not going to lie, in the beginning you always wonder about that, because at the end of the day, you don’t want to lose out on visibility when you get onto a big ensemble multi-starrer. But after reading the script, that doubt just vanished from my mind because the way it has been written, every character has something unique to offer that is going to resonate with you.

What next after Tandav?

I’m doing another Amazon show called Dongri to Dubai, and a Tamil film with Prabhudheva master. I will also be announcing another project very soon. So 2021 is actually turning out to be a good year, starting with Tandav.

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