Role in ‘Traffic’ took toll on Divya Dutta

Bollywood actress Divya Dutta has worked in several intense films, but it was her role in the upcoming movie ‘Traffic’ which drained her emotionally.

Directed by late Rajesh Pillai, ‘Traffic’ is the remake of a 2011 Malayalam film of the same name which features Divya in the role of a mother of a 12-year-old child.

“I was emotionally drained. We were shooting in a real hospital, the whole feeling of being there was… I normally don’t use glycerin, so to cry all the time and feel the pain of the mother who is losing her child did take its toll on me. I used to go home very exhausted,” Divya told PTI.

The drama-thriller is inspired from an actual event that happened in Chennai, where a doctor couple donated organs of their 15-year-old son who died in a road accident.

The young boy’s heart was transported to another hospital for a girl who required heart transplant. The journey, which would’ve taken close to 45 minutes with traffic, was completed in 11 minutes as the police cleared the way and gave green signal for the ambulance to pass.

The ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’ actress says the remake is “more or less” like the original, which she completely loved.

“The film is more or less the same, but with a little bit of tweaking here and there, keeping in mind the Hindi audience. I had seen the original and I absolutely loved it.

There was no reason for me to say no to the film,” the 38-year-old actress said.

Produced by Fox Star Studios and Endemol India, ‘Traffic’ stars Manoj Bajpayee as a traffic police constable.

Divya, who has worked with the ‘Aligarh’ star in films like ‘Veer Zaara’ and ‘Special 26’, says Bajpayee gives his “heart” to the performance which is good for a co-actor.

“This is the third film we are doing together, and in all the previous films we were not opposite each other, so we barely had a scene together. Manoj is a person who is himself. He is fun loving, but when he is working he is very serious about it,” she said.

“He gives all his heart and when you see someone as sincere as him perform the way he does, it affects you as a person. Acting is all about reacting,” Divya said.

‘Traffic’, also starring Jimmy Sheirgill, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Parambrata Chatterjee and Amol Parashar, is scheduled to release on May 6.

Inputs from PTI

Also Read: ‘TRAFFIC’ CAST MISSES DIRECTOR RAJESH PILLAI

Amod Pandit

Quiet, resonant, and creative, he can be seen immersed in his own world, and puts in his heart and soul into the one passion that he has, Bollywood. His line for survival? Feel happy to be a part of it.