Niharika Lyra Dutt, best known for her roles in Paatal Lok and Call Me Bae, was recently seen on Jio Cinema’s Doctors alongside Sharad Kelkar and Harleen Sethi. She made her acting debut with The Bizarre Murder of Mr Tusker in 2012 and has portrayed a wide range of characters on screen. In a recent chat with The Movie Mail, Niharika spoke about her experience of playing one of her most layered characters, Dr. Kayuri Patel, in Doctors. She shared that it was very challenging and rewarding for her.
When asked to pick the most difficult character she’s played in her career so far, Niharika shared that her latest role as Dr Kayuri Patel, from Doctors has been the most demanding and rewarding at the same time. She said, “I think Kayuri Patel (from Doctors) has been the most challenging for me. I feel it’s the most layered character that I’ve ever had the opportunity to play. Not only was it challenging, but it was also very, very rewarding. Because of my director, I was able to do it, and with that, I managed to have faith in myself and my preparations.”
Furthermore, she added, “My motto is, ‘Just do the prep, do the homework, and get on set.’ After that, it was fun to portray that character. She has a lot going on internally and she has a very emotionally turbulent internal world. But on the surface, she tries to keep it all together for a bunch of reasons. That balance was a lot of fun to play with.”
Her latest show, Doctors, seems quite close to the serious and strenous side of the lives of doctors. When quizzed about her prep for the show, the Choona actress shared, “The amazing part of working on Doctors was our director, Sahir Raza, and the incredibly talented direction crew. They were all really geared into making this as authentic as possible. They wanted all of us to do a workshop. Dr Agni Bose and Dr Janvi Lalchandani worked with us on set throughout.”
“Before we started shooting, we had a very lovely and extensive workshop on the very basic things that a doctor needs to know. For example, suturing a wound and performing CPR. We learned the names of the tools during surgery, how to code name them, and how to ask for them. We learned the meanings of things around us, and we also learned about the basic hygiene that doctors have to practice in a hospital,” she added.
“All of this was incredibly helpful because I wanted to get into the skin of the character. Because Kay (Kayuri Patel) is known to be a very precise doctor. So I was very interested in developing that sort of behaviour that seemed like, she’s done this before, she knows what she’s doing, and she absolutely loves it. I had to be immersive. So, I tried to bring that in by creating a lot of lists about the character that helped me develop an idea of who I was playing. And then, I thought about what kind of jewellery she would wear. Kayuri has a little bit of a temper. So, I thought of wearing a nose ring that makes her resemblance look like a bull and makes her look more organic and natural,” Niharika said.
Doctors has been creating a lot of buzz among recent OTT shows. Along with Sharad and Harleen, Niharika also shared screenspace with Aamir Ali, Viraf Patel, Vivaan Shah, and Abhishekh Khan in Jio Cinema’s latest outing.