In Their Grey Zones

Konkona Sen Sharma and Pratibha Ranta speak with Puja Talwar about playing women navigating queerness, power, and public scrutiny in their latest film, Accused, which explores sexual misconduct and companionship

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KONKONA SEN SHARMA 'I’m Hardworking and Sincere, but I’m Also Lucky'

There are so many layers to your character in Netflix’s Accused. A queer woman who is a doctor accused of sexual misconduct, who is also fighting patriarchy at work.

I enjoyed playing Geetika. You can’t paint any human being with just one brush, and that’s what’s so nice. You can’t only look at her as, you know, she’s a woman and therefore that’s her only identity. She’s also the dean of that hospital and a highly successful career woman. Other than that, she’s also a romantic partner to somebody, and then she is also an accused. There are so many layers to the character; it has so much depth and nuance. It is a very interesting psychological exploration of one woman’s word against another's.

Apart from being a woman, Geetika is also queer, for which she is further judged.

The thing is that it happens, but I feel like we shouldn’t be looking at somebody with only that lens. We are not asking to erase it at all. It is shown as a matter-of-fact thing that she happens to be female, and she happens to be queer, and therefore that, of course, affects her life. In films, you hardly ever see people who are differently-abled unless it’s a main character. It's like these people don’t populate our world, different kinds of people. So it’s not the core issue, but it is one of the many layers, as I see it.

What continues to draw you to complex female characters?