Dark is beautiful | Madhuri Dixit-Nene in 'Mrs Deshpande'

Cast Madhuri Dixit-Nene in anything and you hope to see that pearly, perfect smile that’s melted many a heart. Only, in the latest JioHotstar series, Mrs Deshpande, Dixit plays a serial killer, and there’s minimal deployment of that much-vaunted smile; when it does emerge, its motive is under scrutiny. For filmmaker Nagesh Kukunoor, it was pertinent that the actress didn’t “fall back on stuff she’s used in the past” as he went about creating an “iconic, likeable villainess for the ages and to root for”.

In fact, a common cue Kukunoor gave to Dixit to get the desired result was—“I want less MD, more Mrs D.” “I wanted her to be this person who moves slowly and deliberately; there’s complete economy to her movement,” adds Kukunoor. On Madhuri’s part, she enjoyed both the “friendly banter” with Kukunoor and playing a complex character like Sakshi Deshpande, which fulfilled what she has loved doing for nearly four decades: “play strong women that have something to say and stand by”. “I understood the strength of the character; it’s in her silences,” she notes, “it’s what she doesn’t say more than what she says”.

Mrs Deshpande marks Kukunoor’s second show and also his second adaptation of the year, after the acclaimed The Hunt (SonyLIV). While the latter’s inspiration was a book, this time around it’s a French show, La Mante, which in turn was recently adapted into a Korean drama, Queen Mantis (on Netflix). Kukunoor, though, says he’s given the crime thriller a nifty spin rather than a remake. “It’s a full tonal shift,” he says. “The French show is brooding, dark, extremely self-conscious and serious. This is a twisty thriller, a character-driven drama as opposed to a police procedural of which there are too many out there.”

Mrs Deshpande continues Madhuri’s repertoire of essaying resilient women surviving against odds as seen in films like Lajja, Mrityudand or even Beta. Selective with her work on streaming, having only done the series, The Fame Game, and the feature Maja Maa, the show’s premise, she says, is demonstrative of how OTT can be more liberating for writers and filmmakers. “To make something like Mrs Deshpande, it’d be difficult to do it as a movie for cinemas,” she adds. Only on streaming can one of our most beloved actresses play a killer heroine and be accepted.