Dimple Kapadia: You can’t do a decent performance if you’re not given the meat

Veteran actress Dimple Kapadia has been in the industry for five decades and has given unforgettable power-packed performances. Be it her maiden film ‘Bobby’, which released in 1973 or her latest series ‘Saas Bahu Aur Flamingo’, her on screen game is top-notch.

However, the 65-year-old actress says one cannot have a decent performance if not given the meat.

Her latest release ‘Saas Bahu Aur Flamingo’ has redefined the relationship between the women of the family, where often it is shown that “aurat hi aurat ki dushman hoti hai”.

Asked how she feels the show and the relationship of the women in the show has changed the perspective, Dimple told: “I haven’t broken the barrier. It was the character that’s broken the barrier. And that’s important. At the end of the day, it’s the written material, it’s the role, it’s the character, that really works and people often mistake by saying - Oh, what a great performance.”

“You can’t do a decent performance if you’re not given the meat. If the character is not good enough, if the lines are not good enough - it’s an effort by the entire team.”

The actress firmly believes that “each one plays such an important part”.

Dimple added: “It’s unbelievable where it can get you. In the sense that even a hug or a dress person or your makeup artist, even that matters and it translates, so it’s a complete team effort. You can’t stand there alone and do anything.”

In ‘Saas Bahu Aur Flamingo’, Dimple plays a strong-headed matriarch and a drug lord. It is the women in her family who take care of the business. The crime drama streaming television series also stars Radhika Madan, Isha Talwar, Angira Dhar, Deepak Dobriyal, Monica Dogra and Naseeruddin Shah.

Talking about how much of herself did she see in her character of Rani Baa, Dimple said: “It would be a lie to say that in every character that you do, there has to be 30 per cent of yourself, otherwise, where do you dig from? Where do you get your experiences from? Where do you get your emotions from? So yes, 30 per cent of it is you.”

She added: “And the other thing is that I’m silly, but I don’t think I have done any work - I have this thing where some part of my jewellery has to be on me, I don’t know why, it’s been like that always from the beginning, so that there is always some part of me and I take it from there.”