The talented Shreyas Talpade admits that the fact he went through a serious health crisis recently helped him to portray his character of a schizophrenic in Applause Entertainment’s Zindaginama. “I guess unless you empathize with the characters, you won’t be able to do that. So, yes, I personally also after this whole medical crisis that happened, it has changed a lot of things for me. But this character is something that I actually performed and portrayed before my medical crisis. But, my life has pretty much changed after that. Not only the medical crisis, but I think after you play any character for that matter, every character will teach you something and you take back something with you after you’re done playing that. So, this was no different. It has taught me a lot. And as far as precautions are concerned, I just want to tell everyone, never ever take your life for granted. I think I am just extremely grateful for this opportunity that God has given me. You know, being born and being here on this planet is a boon. And I think we just should be grateful about it and not take it for granted even for a single second. Because trust me, it is just that one second that changes everything for you. It did for me in a massive manner. I don’t want this to happen with anyone what happened with me, but I definitely want people to be a little more cautious, take more precautions. Times are changing. It’s a different world that we’re living in. We have to be a little more cautious about our health. Because, you know, we keep saying that health is wealth, but we rarely tend to follow it. But health is wealth. So do not take your health, your life for granted and just be grateful for the gift of life.”
Speaking on why he chose to be a part of this excellent anthology on mental health, Shreyas says, “Essentially, two reasons. One, my wife is a clinical psychologist and most of her friends are also from the same fraternity, they’re psychiatrists or psychologists. And, you know, whenever we used to meet, they would tell me inspiring stories about how people would continue with therapy for quite some time and recover and, you know, or get better at what they were doing. This something that I always felt challenging to portray as an actor and when this part came in, there’s no reason why I would refuse it because I had never played a character like this before. So, that was the second reason why I thought I should, you know, try it out.”
Shreyas took his wife’s help to play the role. “I tried to portray it in as real a manner. So, in the script, he has demanded a certain amount of realism and sensitivity associated with that character. And obviously, my director Sukriti was, you know, more than helpful. I always keep saying that I am a director’s actor and she had done her homework really well. So, that really helped me to perform it better. Plus, I think if you have co-actors like Anjali Patil, they also add a lot of value and help you perform better. So, yeah, these factors, I guess, were kind of responsible. I think somewhere when you portray such a character, the first thing that as an actor you do is you try to read the mind of that character. You go into his backstory, or if there is no backstory, you try to make a backstory. What is he like? How does he sleep? What time does he sleep? What does he eat? Who does he speak with? What is his profession? What was he doing before? So, you try to get into all of those and then automatically when the character’s background is clear, that’s when it becomes a lot more easier for you to just gel in and keep portraying. I could feel to a very large extent what that character felt. Obviously, what the patients go through is something which we will never be completely able to understand. But I tried to feel it as much as possible and then portray it on screen. And to be very honest, I think, you know, physical illnesses, you can still probably pop a tablet and maybe apply some ointment and you can get some kind of relief.But I think mental illnesses, it is not only the medication, but also the family support or support of all the caregivers that makes a huge difference in their life. That is equally important whenever there is a mental health issue concerned. So, medical crisis or not, I empathize with all my characters. This one is special, this one was tough, this one was challenging. I wanted to make sure that, you know, of course, apart from keeping it in the real space, I also wanted to keep it as authentic as possible and not really go overboard in emoting it in any manner.”
