Huma Qureshi interview: ‘There is merit in being the odd one out’

Maharani, Delhi Crime and Single Salma – Huma Qureshi has had a hat trick of sorts this year. Qureshi’s acclaimed turn as a ruthless trafficker in the Netflix show Delhi Crime’s third season is a departure from her previous work. In the fourth instalment of the popular Sony LIV series Maharani, Qureshi plays the previously clueless and presently up-to-speed Bihar politician Rani Bharti.

This year, Qureshi also produced and headlined the feminist drama Single Salma, in which her heroine resists hopping on to the marriage band wagon. Qureshi has played her fair share of outliers in such films as Gangs of Wasseypur (her first release), Badlapur, Dedh Ishqiya, D-Day, Kaala, Double XL, Monica, O My Darling, Tees and Tarla.

The 39-year-old actor’s upcoming films include Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-ups (led by Kannada star Yash) and her home production Baby Do Die Do. Qureshi spoke to Scroll about the decisions that led to Maharani and Delhi Crime and her chosen path for her future roles. Here are edited excerpts from the interview.

You have been praised for playing a monstrous villain in Delhi Crime 3. How does that make you feel?

I was tearing up. I had goose bumps. My heart was full of gratitude saying, thank you for calling me a monster. I didn’t know that to be called a monster, a beast, evil incarnate, would bring me so much joy.

What was the brief, and how did you interpret the role?

It’s always about the interpretation, is it not? When I was first approached, I thought, it’s Delhi Crime so it must be a cop’s role. Since I have played Rani Bharti, I assumed that all these righteous women parts would come to me. But the creators were like no, we would like you to offer the antagonist. Suddenly, a part of my brain lit up.

The writing was phenomenal, but I was very afraid. The previous two seasons are police procedurals, about the intricacies of that world, which is beautiful and the reason Delhi Crime is the show it is. I guess that at some point, the makers felt that the show had to evolve. I think the choice they made was to evolve the antagonist’s arc a little more, delve into the world of crime and criminals.

I was very nervous because what if people didn’t enjoy it? What if it didn’t hold true? My interpretation was to make the performance as much of a lived experience as possible.

If you don’t stop crime, it gets perpetuated. In my head, Badi Didi or Meena is very much part of this cycle. She had possibly been trafficked, had been at the receiving end of violence and trauma. When she gets the opportunity, she decides to become the oppressor because she thinks that it is a ticket out of all of this. She does not have any feelings because that part of her heart and head is numbed.

That numbness translates into how she deals like a slave trader with the girls and women she is trafficking.

When I was interacting with the girls, I saw them as product, not people with feelings. For example, Meena constantly touches the girls or their faces. She doesn’t want them to understand the difference between good touch and bad touch.

Meena has a lot of rage issues, she is mercurial. She doesn’t think twice about using people to her advantage, about chopping off her own hand if she has to escape. She’s that detached. Her pain receptor is off somewhere in her head.

It was also different to understand that this idea of trafficking is not only for one gender – both genders participate equally in this enterprise. It was important to show that aspect too.

You’ve also come off warm reviews for the fourth season of Maharani, in which your character Rani Bharti has a different involvement with power. Why do you think the show’s creator Subhash Kapoor cast you in the role?

I have no idea – I don’t think we have ever actually discussed it. We had worked together in Jolly LLB 2. I think that he saw in me a great deal of hunger to do something different.

Often, people confuse who we are as human beings and what we can potentially do as actors. I am an urban girl, I have been raised in Delhi, I have been to an English-medium school, I have travelled across the country. But I haven’t been to Bihar. I am grateful that Subhash chose me even though I wasn’t the natural choice.

I am an empathetic person. I am naturally curious about other people. On the day of the look test, I wore a red saree and rubber slippers and put on orange sindoor all the way to the back of my head. Everybody was like, she is really going to commit to this.

It’s been an honour, and the biggest pleasure of my life, to play Rani Bharti. It changed my life. She is unlike myself – an uneducated village woman, raising two children, working in the fields and thinking that she is going to become the chief minister and even the prime minister. The change isn’t sudden. She becomes all these things because of who she is.

You have been in Maharani since 2021. How has Rani Bharti, and your performance, evolved?

In season one, Rani Bharti is basically naive, unsure and nervous. She is trying to find her feet. That season is my favourite because it sets the tone for everything else.

I remember moments from that, like when she gives a beautiful speech in the Assembly in her own style. When that happens, you realise that she isn’t going to take things lying down. She has a lot of native wisdom that we often discount.

In season two, she is accused of killing her husband and has to prove her innocence. The third season is all about her revenge. I would get messages from fans saying, don’t worry, we will ensure justice for Rani Bharti. Where was this love even coming from? I have never experienced anything like this in my whole career.

Season four is also exciting because she is now a political beast, she has come into her own. She knows the rules of the game and how to play them.

There have been other interesting roles too, like Monica, O My Darling, Double XL and Single Salma. Your career started with Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur in 2012. Did you consciously decide to position yourself differently?

Wasseypur just happened to me. At the time, I was young and naive. I thought I would do that just one film because I didn’t think that acting was a possibility. When Wasseypur went to the Cannes Film Festival and became a success, I thought, this is normal. I later realised that this happens only once in a lifetime.

After that came a period of a lot of confusion, of not knowing what I wanted to do and accepting everything offered to me. I didn’t have anybody guiding or advising me. Today, I see actors with an army of managers and image consultants and what not. I didn’t have anybody. I was following my instincts.

But I was fortunate. I had signed a lot of films before even Gangs of Wasseypur was released, which included Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana, Ek Thi Daayan and Dedh Ishqiya. These are films that I auditioned for.

While they were appreciated, I was still finding myself. I wasn’t sure what my positioning was, what kind of an actor I was. I didn’t know who I wanted to be. In the middle of this quest, I even had a small part in Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead.

So what changed for you?

Somewhere during the making of Maharani, I said to myself, I am going to lean into this – to reclaim power for myself, to believe that I am capable of leading films. I don’t have to be the fulcrum of every project, but if the opportunity arises, I shouldn’t chicken out of it. I shouldn’t think that I am not ready. That was a very big switch in my head.

So if I have to join a series like Delhi Crime, I am aware of the value I bring to the project. Earlier, I probably wouldn’t have done it. I might have been scared to play a negative character.

I want to back myself. I want to play living, breathing, authentic, three-dimensional women who are not caricatures or cut-outs. They can be good, bad or ugly, but they will always have a certain amount of power and agency.

We don’t have enough of these. Even now, most parts are about the hero’s journey, and you are the nice pretty girlfriend who will wait for him to save the day. I am very capable of picking up a gun and fighting for my country. I am capable of saving myself and possibly him too.

You played that role in Nikkhil Advani’s D-Day (2013), in which you starred as an undercover agent in Pakistan. But the film didn’t do well.

It’s a beautiful film. I really enjoyed working in it. It’s a very loved film, and it will get even more love as time goes by.

Actors working in Bollywood cannot afford to ignore a film’s box office performance. What is your take?

I don’t ignore the box office at all. I am very interested in the box office. In fact, I have been proclaiming that I am looking for projects that do box office numbers. I don’t think an actor’s journey is complete by only doing one or the other. I grew up watching films on the big screen.

The streaming love is also beautiful because it shows you a different way. The biggest lesson from streaming is that it has shown up the deficiencies in the system.

Single Salma came out on October 31 in select theatres. The system thought that a film like this will not do well. On the other hand, the shows that I am in are trending.

Such films don’t get showcasing. They are dropped without fanfare or marketing spends. There is a systemic understanding that these kinds of films don’t work – but says who?

That is what I am fighting. My goal is to be in films that don’t bow down to that kind of understanding. I do believe that there is a very big audience for these kinds of films. We need to find the correct way for them to reach people.

I want to do the kind of work that resonates with me. You can be your own kind of star. I say this in all humility – when I step out of my house, I see a hoarding for Delhi Crime on one side and Maharani on the other. If I had followed the conventional path, I wouldn't be seeing this kind of success.

There is merit in being the odd one out. I pray that I never lose the will to be the problem child.