In this throwback, Radhika Apte talked with Subhash K Jha right before the release of Hunterrr in 2015 and we have the scoop on this film that starred Gulshan Deviah.
In Harshvardhan Kulkarni’s quirky, cocky, sex comedy Hunterrr, producer Madhu Mantena took a huge risk as Gulshan Devaiah played a nymphomaniac with the wrong sex organ, a guy who thinks with his reproductive organ. Over-sexed and under-nourished he seduces frustrated aunties and insatiable bahenjis and doesn’t mind getting beaten up by guys who have more to do in life than have sex with every moving object in a dress.
Radhika Apte who played a liberal, unconventional woman had scored a success with Sriram Raghavan’s Badlapur just before Hunterrr, she spoke to me about the two different films. “I guess what really worked for me was that the two films and my characters in them were so different from one another. It was just lucky that the two films came out together. We shot Hunterrr over a long period of time. We did a major part of the shooting and then stopped. We picked up the threads again after two years completed the film and quickly released it. Fortunately the time lapse doesn’t show in the film.”
In Hunterrr, Radhika played a character with a past. Says the actress, “We are living during times when women are not expected to be sati savtiris. My character in Hunterr had a relationship and an abortion. This is a relatable person. I don’t know any friend of mine who hasn’t had sex before marriage.”
For an actress who has worked in films of seven languages even before turning 30 Radhika has a hunger to excel in unexpected roles. “I cannot see myself just looking pretty and dancing. I am sure that requires a helluva lot of discipline and hard work. But I’d rather channelize my energy to do something different, like I did in Badlapur and Hunterrr.”
