Dubai: Bollywood actress Bhumi Pednekar has never played it safe in her career. Her first film was the incredibly enjoyable romantic comedy ‘Dum Laga Ke Haisha’ in which she played a plus-size woman navigating an arranged marriage to a vain high-school drop out.
The self-made star, Bhumi, was brilliant and her performance went far beyond just putting on over 15 kilos for the role. And since then she has never shied away from taking on risks.
This season, she is now stepping into playing a fierce cop in the dark crime series Daldal, out on Prime Video now.
Streaming now on Prime Video, the cop series isn’t a typical whodunit, claims Bhumi in an interview with Gulf News.
“It’s a why-dunit cop series. What excited me the most about Daldal was that it was trying to disrupt a very, very successful genre,” she tells me, sounding like she’s just discovered a guilty pleasure.
“Serial killer narratives, crime drama, psychological dramas do very, very well, especially on streaming platforms too!.”
Pednekar plays Rita Ferreira , a cop who is volatile and vulnerable. She’s morally anchored, but internally, she has “every trait that can make her a serial killer, and yet she chose the righteous path”, adds Bhumi.
“She is violent internally. She’s angry. She’s broken. Yet she is vulnerable, yet she has bouts of empathy too.”
So does the show capture the emotional toll of policing.
“You almost become clinical about death,” she explains. “That is just the way they have to train themselves, because many a times emotions don’t really have the space to be a part of this narrative.”
But Daldal isn’t just about cops and crimes. It’s a mirror to society, exploring patriarchy, childhood trauma, and the ecosystems that either heal or hurt us, says Bhumi.
“The primary theme is how all of us are a product of a fractured society and a fractured system,” she says. “Some of us belong to ecosystems that help us heal. Most of us don’t. And how childhood trauma literally sums up into you being the person that you are.”
But is it too similar to Delhi Crime or Kate Winslet’s searing cop series’ Mare Of Easttown.
“I’m a huge fan of what madam sir did in Delhi Crime,” she shares, adding that Shefali Shah even messaged her to praise her performance.
“My morning started with her message.”
Still, she hopes Daldal earns its own place. “Both the shows you spoke about created disruption within the genre, and Daldal has too. I really hope that when you have your next interview, you can add Daldal to that list as well.”
Her own career has been a masterclass in disruption. From polarising choices to unexpected hits, Pednekar has always embraced the risk.
“I’m an actor. I’m going to keep trying. I want to get out of every box that’s created for me,” she says.
“Even in the future, there will be misfires, there will be work that works. But I don’t want to lose the gusto and the enthusiasm to support different narratives.”
And then there are the reviews: the brutal, soul-testing ones that every actor inevitably faces. Pednekar’s Netflix series The Royals were met with mixed reviews. Her looks and her lips were dissected more than the script and it could have hurt.
“For me, the brutal reviews or the brutal opinions, of course they do matter, because I feel every opinion and every review has some learning in there, as far as it’s done with the right intention and the right sort of kindness and empathy. I am all for constructive criticism,” she says.
But it’s the love from audiences that keeps her fired up.
“What about all the love that I get? The love is so much,” she says. “For the last 10 days, it has been nothing short of a dream. And I crave this. My soul craved this because I’m an artist.”
And there’s a humility in her words: “When you haven’t found that sort of love in a while and it happens, you value it a lot more.”
And yes, her cop character in Daldal is not a caricature of toughness. Pednekar and the makers were careful not to over-masculinise her.
“We were very conscious that we don’t want to make her overtly masculine,” she says. “She is a woman in a man’s world. Her superpower in the show is her instinct and that lens from her being a woman.”
In a genre saturated with hyper-masculine cops and over-the-top violence, Daldal stands out. For Pednekar, the show is both a challenge and a playground. Her thrill comes not from the gore, but from inhabiting the chaos of human choices, trauma, and survival — and from thriving on the love her audience gives back.
“All I know is thriving on the love that my audience gives me,” she says. And honestly? That is all the permission you need to binge Daldal tonight.
