Priyanka Bose has been waiting for a project like ‘Lion’ for a long time.
The actress – who plays Kamla Munshi, the biological mother to Dev Patel’s Saroo in the hit movie – doesn’t feel she has followed the "model turned wannabe actor" route into Bollywood and admits she can "sometimes feel very left out".
She said: "There is a dark hole sometimes because I have this hyper ambition about the type of artist or actor I want to be, and you know, in India, I’m not valued that much for this intensity. There are different ways of thinking and casting in Bollywood, and I’m not the prototype who has been say, a model turned wannabe actor – a beauty queen who’s come into acting.
"I sometimes I feel very left out because I’m just different in my sensibilities … but I keep beating the same drum saying, listen, look at me now, I am here to offer 110 percent. So when a project like ‘Lion’ comes up I’m like, ‘Okay, I’ve been waiting to exhale for all this time.’"
And Priyanka has opened up about how they achieved a particularly heart-wrenching scene when Saroo (Patel) finds himself reunited with his mother.
She told Du Jour magazine: "Because that scene was their reunion after an entire lifetime. Garth [Davis; director] and me and Dev workshopped a lot prior, and Dev and I got to know each other very intimately, in a very beautiful way.
"Then Garth made sure we didn’t see each other for about four days. And that caused so much detachment anxiety – I had no idea I was going to go through that! Both Dev and I were in the same boat, but we went with it and then we finally saw each other on set. He was looking for me in the crowd, and I was looking for him, and then we saw each other, and it was quite gorgeous."
Priyanka Bose’s dream role in Lion
