Priyanka Chopra has essayed an array of roles through her career, from playing a cop to a queen and a boxer, the actress has left no stone unturned. However, at the premiere of her film, The Sky Is Pink at the Toronto International Film Festival, the actress revealed how difficult it was to play a mother who had lost a child. In the movie, Priyanka plays the role of Aisha Chaudhary’s mother, Aditi Chaudhary and the film follows the journey of the family, played by Farhan Akhtar and Rohit Saraf, as they lose Aisha to a potentially fatal disease, SCID (Severe Combined Immuno-Deficiency).
“It was a really hard juxtaposition of real life for me,” the actress said, “Especially because I was getting married and at the same time this film deals with loss, loss of a child, which is such an unnatural way of being.” Priyanka was in tears at the premiere and it proves that the film is a work of labour.
The actress even shared a picture on Instagram from the premier where she and Farhan stood alongside Aisha’s parents and captioned it, “A special night with special people, sharing this labour of love which took us over a year to bring to life. It was an unforgettable experience…. Thank you Aditi and Niren for trusting us with your story and for joining us at #TheSkyIsPink world premiere at @tiff_net”
In an interview with a newspaper, the director of the movie, Shonali Bose spoke about how Priyanka was heartbroken during the filming of emotional scenes. She revealed that Priyanka often continued to cry even after the scene was shot. “After I called ‘cut’, I hugged her and she couldn’t stop crying. She kept whispering, ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I now know what it means to lose a child. I am so sorry for Ishlu.’ I continued holding her,” the director stated while referring to how Shonali lost her son, Ishan a few years ago.
Shonali also revealed that Priyanka decided to call Rohit Saraf, the actor who plays Aisha’s older brother, Ishlu. It was a nickname Shonali had for her own son. “Priyanka heard me calling my Ishan that when I spoke about him and asked me, ‘Can I call him Ishlu in this scene?’ I just smiled from ear to ear,” Shonali told the newspaper.
The film, which is based on 17-year-old Aisha’s book, My Little Epiphanies which she published before she passed away. In the movie, Priyanka Chopra and Farhan Akhtar play Aisha’s parents, while the role of Aisha herself is essayed by Zaira Wasim. When asked how Aisha’s parents, Aditi and Niren Chaudhary reacted to the film, Shonali added that she showed them the scene of their child’s death first, and she was incredibly nervous about the same. “They watched it while I stood outside the edit room nervously. When they came out, they hugged me and wept in my arms, saying that I’d captured it exactly as it happened. It’s difficult to capture somebody else’s memory about the loss of their child, I know how it is, having lost one myself,” said Shonali.
The Sky Is Pink is slated to release on October 11th and we can’t wait to watch Aisha’s incredible journey on the big screen.
Featured Image: Instagram
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