Sarwat Gilani has revealed that she took inspiration from Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada for her character in Churails. Sarwat plays a lawyer turned trophy wife Sara in the series.
Read more – Cheating husbands, badass women & girl power: ‘Churails’ promises to be ‘witchy’ delight
In a recent interview with an Indian media outlet, Gilani shared: “In TV and films, you have to emote a lot for the audience to feel the pain or happiness but for the web it had to be altered to zero. I had to unlearn and start new. In The Devil Wears Prada, Streep doesn’t say much but her aura is so powerful. I even got inspired by Angelina’s [Jolie] film Mr and Mrs Smith, I wanted to take that subtleness.”
She added, “Basically, I adapted the subtleness of these strong personalities in my character.”
Talking further about the show, Gilani said that director Asim Abbasi’s aim was to break the stereotype that a woman who steps out of the house is bad and the one who stays home and takes care of the house in good. She said Pakistani dramas are often unable to portray women like they are and end up sugarcoating them and presenting an unrealistic character.
“The stories are fictional. There is not much reality attached to it, although we see some stories in the news every day. Like a guy throwing acid on a woman because she refused to marry him. But we don’t want to talk about it in the entertainment sector, we want to sugarcoat the story. Asim wanted to break this,” said the actor.
“In Churails we didn’t need a man to rescue a woman, we wanted to show that a woman can stand for herself and uplift other women going through problems.”
Meanwhile, Gilani is thrilled about the response they are getting for Churails.
Created and directed by Cake director Asim Abbasi, Churails is now streaming on ZEE5. The series also features Yasra Rizvi, Nimra Bucha, Omair Rana and Meharbano in the lead roles.
