Pranav Sachdev who plays the ‘ultimate villain’ in the unique love story between two ladies in Loneranger Productions’ recently streamed web-series, Maaya 2 feels that the series and its concept has helped him evolve as a human being.
Maaya 2, which talks about a lesbian love story has Priyal Gor and Leena Jumani playing the central roles. This Vikram Bhatt series is directed by Krishna Bhatt. The series streams on VB on the Web.
Says Pranav, “I was very apprehensive of doing this character initially. The role was so cringe-worthy that he was doing all that a sane human being will never do. I got scared, but I guess the job of an actor is to accept what he gets. I am getting a lot of hate messages on social media and on mails. At the end of the day, I am happy that I have achieved what I had set out to achieve. I had to be the baddie in this love story.”
Pranav has been part of TV shows Zindagi.com on DD, Airlines on Star Plus and Agar Tum Saath Ho on Zindagi. He has also been part of MensXP Original series Dilliwood. He has earlier played a negative character in Vikram Bhatt’s Hadh and will play a serial killer in Unafraid (if it happens).
Ask him whether he will consider this role in Maaya 2 to be his toughest and he states, “Every day is a new day and every new role is seen to be the toughest one. But my challenge here was to keep this role different from my earlier roles. The web gives us the liberty to do things differently. Otherwise on TV, roles are so similar that it seems like going to a corporate office daily. This makes me run away from them. I used to go with my own ideas for the role, but Krishna Bhatt our Director envisioned the character so perfectly that I chose to do what she said. In fact, if you have seen, I used a lighter in every scene of mine, and this idea came from Krishna. We had great creative jamming on the set, and we worked really hard on our reading and rehearsals before going on floor.”
Pranav who is passionate about doing theatre works with senior actors like Asrani, Annu Kapoor for his stage plays.
On the relevance of the subject, that of Maaya 2 being a lesbian love story, the actor avers, “The concept is not new at all. However, people are embracing it more now, and are getting more sensitive towards it in the present time. Actually, I was a homophobic before I got to be part of Maaya 2. However, through this journey, I have understood that love is beyond physicalities and bodies; it is quite a loaded term. Love can be between anyone and it has made me sensitive towards the community. I hope this message reaches the right audience too. In my case, I would say that I was less exposed to this idea and it was forbidden to love the same sex. But when I got into reading the story, understanding characters, my mindset changed. When the last episode was being shot, I was actually in tears. It did not matter anymore that there were two girls in love. The beauty of the whole story was that love happened.”
Giving a special mention to his co-actors Priyal Gor and Leena Jumani, Pranav exclaims, “They are beautiful females and very experienced TV actors. I had lot of fun working with them. To tell you more, I had inhibitions about them doing whatever they were to, but they knew their jobs really well. They were bold enough to carry out the scenes with elan. Frankly, they were not thinking about it as much as I was at the end of the day (smiles).”
Ask Pranav whether he is game to getting back to TV and he says, “I am happy being in the digital space. I have done TV shows earlier, but I do not want to get into it as of now. I would prefer to do stage, web and even films.”
On his immediate plans he states, “I have been working non-stop for 8-9 months now. I will like to refuel my creative energies by being part of the stage. I will also opt for a holiday before I get back to work again.”
Stay blessed, Pranav!!
