Nishant Dahiya on rejecting Mrs at first: ‘Didn’t want people to hate me’

After initially refusing to play a negative role in Mrs, Nishant on why he came on board

As a patriarchal and emotionally abusive husband on screen, actor Nishant Dahiya is being appreciated for his performance in the recently released Mrs. However, his first instinct was to refuse the film. “I had seen The Great Indian Kitchen [2021] before and loved the [story] and hated the husband’s character. So, when Mrs was offered to me, my first reaction was, ‘I don’t want to be this person.’ I didn’t want people hating me,” Dahiya reveals.

Mrs is the Hindi adaptation of the Malayalam film, The Great Indian Kitchen

He says his reluctance stemmed from the audience’s response to some of his previous works. “I have had enough hate. After Kedarnath [2018], people abused me on social media. The smallest of things affect me. One [negative] comment also affects me a lot. But I am trying to work on that,” he says. Dahiya walked into the meeting with director Arati Kadav intending to say no. “Arati was lovely. She came across as a warm person, and I wanted to work with her. She was keen on making this film and [hiring] me. I did say no, but after coming home, I felt I should revisit the offer.” Mrs is the story of a trained dancer who struggles to follow her dreams 
after marriage.

The actor realised that the film needed to reach a wider audience. “It’s a story that needs to be told because somewhere we are all conditioned in a way that we don’t realise when we are wrong,” he explains, adding that people have normalised women being in the kitchen and men not doing household chores. The bonus of working opposite Sanya Malhotra further justified being part of the project. “The moment I got to know, it felt like home because I have known Sanya for years. I felt this was not going to be a bad set,” he laughs. Looking back, Dahiya is happy he revisited his decision, as he was able to see his character in a different light while shooting the Zee5 film. The actor hopes with the film, people reflect on their patriarchal ways without being hard on themselves because “we are all conditioned to behave in this way”. “You are not a bad person. It’s the conditioning that you need to forget and try to live life in a different way.”

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