If someone had to play Kavya, it has to be me: Shraddha Srinath

CHENNAI: The trailer of The Game: You Never Play Alone dropped a few hours ago and has instantly caught the audience’s attention. More than the critical acclaim, netizens have commonly said that they can highly relate to the content they have seen so far in the video. Seasoned actor Shraddha Srinath, who makes her digital debut with the series, says that she felt the same way when she listened to Rajesh M Selva’s narration. “When I heard about the characterisation of Kavya Rajaram, I was excited, and beyond that, I strongly felt that if someone has to portray Kavya on screen, it has to be me. I always wanted to be Kavya because she is fierce, brave, and sometimes vulnerable as well. She gets to the bottom of things, for which I guess I don’t have the courage. Though it is human nature to react that way during adverse times, I was curious to know who Kavya is and where she comes from,” says Shraddha.

The actor plays a game developer in the series and she smiles, saying she was “Game for The Game.” “It is about what made her choose this field, what her family is like, and the conflicts she went through while growing up. I am not a gamer, and I last remember playing Road Rash on my desktop. When I started learning about the gaming industry for this series, I realised that it is a multi-billion-dollar industry where even the chairs that gamers buy come with certain ergonomics, and there are tournaments where winners walk away with a jackpot. It is not a niche anymore. My research was more on the industry,” she adds.

Rajesh M Selva, who is known for films like Thoongavanam with Kamal Haasan and Kadaaram Kondaan with Vikram, has aesthetically built a world of his own in The Game. He seems to have taken a detour from his comfort zone for this series and says, “I should also thank my co-writers Deepti and Karthik. Having dealt with action-based scripts previously, The Game is high on human emotions, and that, to me, came across as a challenge. Also, it is not an easy topic we have dealt with in the series. Other characters around Kavya carry a variety of emotions, and we had to tread a careful path. But as a team, we have done our best in putting all these together.”

Rajesh adds that the series will also try to narrow gender differences without being preachy. “Even in the era of social media, there are some who are gender-biased. We have explored it, and the theme as such was interesting. After working in a couple of films and web series, I believe that OTT has more scope. Also, during the olden times, there used to be something called Kadhai Ilaakka (script division), where writers used to jam in story discussions. Now, like a nuclear family, writing too has shrunk because mostly it is the directors who write solely, and I am completely against it as I believe in collaborative culture.”

The Game is a first for Shraddha, as she is seen riding a bike and has also dubbed her voice in Tamil for the first time. It also marks her OTT debut. She laughs when we ask her about this newfound skill: biking. “Someone would have told you about me learning to ride a bike, I am sure. But yes, I learnt it specially for this series. Also, when it came to dubbing, I had been giving my voice test since Vikram Vedha days. I have been an actor who always knows the importance of dubbing, and now my Tamil has improved over the years and I was confident as well. Rajesh also helped me get it right. I was waiting for the perfect script to foray into OTT, and when I heard this script, I was fixated that this should be the one,” says Shraddha.

Sameer Nair, the CEO of Applause Entertainment, has focused more on producing good content from the south. He says that The Game is another content-driven narrative in that pursuit. “It is unique as the narrative is in the French-Canadian format. When the team heard the story, we ensured that this was not for Hindi, as we did not want our North Indian folks to be portrayed as game developers. When we built the narrative from Chennai, the character of Kavya started shaping up well. Shraddha was born to play Kavya, and even now, she looks like she is still being Kavya off-camera too. And Netflix partnering with us is quite a validation,” he tells us.

Monika Shergill, Vice President (Content), Netflix India, reciprocates the compliment to Sameer and adds, “We have always had a wonderful partnership with Applause. For making our original content, the journey looks different with different genres of narratives. They go through a lot of commissioning, where our teams are deeply involved before going to production and bringing it into service. And with certain content, we partner at an advanced stage, and The Game is one such show where it came to us and we were more than happy to collaborate. We did Black Warrant and Modern Masters with Rajamouli. So, when The Game came to us, it was a no-brainer. Rajesh has done a commendable job with his team, and Shraddha has put up a great show as Kavya. The idea is fresh and bold, and we don’t come across this often. It’s an urgent story to tell our audience as it deals with digital vulnerability.”