EXCLUSIVE | Gulshan Devaiah on playing a double role in Disney Hotstar's 'Bad Cop': 'It wasn't challenging at all because...'

Aditya Datt’s Bad Cop is now streaming on Disney Plus Hotstar. It stars Gulshan Devaiah, Anurag Kashyap, Harleen Sethi, Saurabh Sachdeva, Aishwarya Sushmita in crucial roles. In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, Gulshan and Harleen spoke about their respective characters and much more.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

So my first question is about the altercation scene that happens between, Karan and Devika in episode one. Harleen, this is for you. I know that Karan is a twisted cop; do you see any shades of grey, any flaws in Devika as well?

Interesting. Do I see any flaws in her? I think she is trying her best to balance both worlds. I think she is doubtful sometimes whether she’s doing a good job at it or not, whether she should go hard on him, easy on him at work, because he’s behaving like this. She’s always questioning herself also. You know, how much is she, how much does she need to give him love at home? How is he going to receive it? How is he going to respond to it? She always tried. So I think she’s always conflicted in her head. He’s a he’s a junior, but he he’s not supposed to talk like that, but he talks like that. And then there are other people in the police station. And then she gets angry, but she can’t show it fully. And then when she comes home, she’s cooked food for him, his favorite food. But he doesn’t want to respond to her. He’s showing ego there also. Again, she’s crying. She’s just so conflicted. So I’m sure she doubts herself.

Gulshan, I must say that you have a terrific screen presence, and you play all your roles with a lot of confidence. But in a recent interview, you said that you were always very conscious about the way you look. Why did that happen?

I think I’ve grown up like that. Like, you know, from a very young age, I was very self conscious about, I think in my teenage years, I started to get very conscious about my appearance, about my mannerisms. You know, you get made fun of by people. Not necessarily evil people. Some of the boys didn’t know any better themselves. So I got very subconscious of that, and I think the acne breakouts came out on my skin really much later. So most of my friends and everybody my age had already gone through that. So when you’re 18, 19, things are ongoing through all these hormonal changes and these breakouts, and that’s not really a phase that, you know, it’s very convenient for you to sort of deal with such things. So it used to be terrible and, I mean, of course, like, now I know better, not to eat sugar. So I had very little clue about, the real world. So that all of these things made me really self conscious.

Between growing up and now, how would you define a conventional hero and an unconventional hero? These 2 terms are often talked about.

I have no clue how I would define that. It’s a great question, but, unfortunately, I don’t have any answer. It’s a great question. Can I think about what’s that?

Harleen, how did you prepare for your role as the cop, Devika?

I think I just wanted to keep that conflict and that confusion going as to I don’t know how to how do I fix this relationship. Do I want to fix this relationship? So I asked a lot of questions to myself. And how I would do is I would I would take a scene, and I would to make it more interesting, I would actually break it down into where she becomes the wife and where she becomes the boss. Wife and boss and wife and boss, and she keeps switching be between that. Sometimes, if, say, for example, if she’s at police station, it’s clear. Sometimes at home, it’s clear, but most times, it the drama becomes more interesting when there’s an interplay of these things. Because otherwise, the character will become very flat. So even though they are very subtle and this is the homework that only I know, this is how I used to, like, kind of prepare for it to really understand the what is it that’s going behind? Does she really want to work this relationship? Why does she want to work on this relationship? Does she still love him? Does she think that he’s cheating on her? So all of the questions that are not part of it also, I would ask. I would make my own set of questions. I would try to answer them. So that is the kind of homework I used to do to kind of come closer to Devika.

Gulshan , in most of the double role movies that we have seen, one character is the angel and the other is the devil. But in the case of Karan and Arjun, what I observed was they both are flawed. They both are twisted. They both are very similar to each other. So was it a challenge to play this because both the characters are more similar than they are different?

It wasn’t challenging at all. They are different enough. I mean, the circumstances are different. What they do is, what they stand for, what they believe is different. Karan is definitely a lot more confident over itself, and Arjun is not as sure of himself. And  he gave me enough masala to sort of play with. So I never really thought that it was challenging. The thing that was challenging was actually, like, to, change clothes and, like, do it all over again.

Harleen, what are some of the qualities of Devika that you wish you had?

That I wish I had. Wow. First of all, let’s compliment you on the questions that you’re asking. You’ve really done your homework. It’s amazing because they’re not conventional questions. So, what are the qualities of Devika that I wish I had? I think I I also stand up for myself, but maybe Devika stands up for herself more strongly, more fiercely. She’s very courageous. She’s She’s very courageous character. Yeah. So I also think that she’s not sorry about being so ambitious. She’s not sorry. I think as Harleen, I would feel a lot more emotional and sensitive about it, and I don’t know how how I would have dealt with it. I don’t think I’m that courageous or that ambitious or as good at multitasking because she also has a daughter. So she’s doing so well at work. She’s killing it at work. She’s also trying to fix her relationship with her husband, and she’s a mother. She’s also multitasking.

Gulshan, you have always benefited from some great writing. Ram Leela, Dum Maaro Dum, Mard Ko Dard Nahin Hota, some of these films that you have done have some fantastic dialogues, and Bad Cop also has some terrific lines too. So do you spend a lot of time with the writing or is it spontaneity as well?

I think it’s really important for me to understand the sensibilities of the person who’s making this, the of the storyteller. In this case, Aditya Datt. How he interprets the text? Because, few writers have written it together. And all of their creativity has come together, but it’s more important for me to understand how Aditya is going to tell this story. The better I understand it, the better I am able to serve that since But it is very clear. And I had the advantage of having already worked with him on a feature film. So I think their idea as to what to expect, and I I understood his process. Even when sometimes he had difficulty explaining it, I still knew it because I had gone through it. I’ve seen it. This is how it’s going to turn out. So I think that really helps me, figure out a way to articulate, the dialogues that I’ve given. So it’s different, for, say, a remark activity world that I was also part of when I played a cop. It’s different for the Aditya that, world also where I’m playing a cop, which is very different.

Working as an Entertainment journalist for over five years, covering stories, reporting, and interviewing various film personalities of the film industry see more