Radhika Apte and Keerthy Suresh hold centerstage in the Netflix series, Akka. Suresh plays the title-role, of the ruler, named Akka.
Based in a fictional South Indian town called Pernunu, which is ruled by a matriarchal society, it is YRF Entertainment’s fifth association with the OTT platform, which began with the brilliant The Railway Men. Apte, known to select arty subjects (with few exceptions) plays Rudra here, a gangster from Mumbai whose target is to destroy and dismantle the ruling matriarchal setup.
Suresh told a section of the media later that the series blurs the line between a protagonist and an antagonist, while Apte termed it simply as “an entertaining gangster epic.” Interestingly, their names are those of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati!
I asked debut-making writer-director Dharmaraj Shetty, who was praised by both actors for his sheer passion, how he casted the series, since he was a foirst-time director dealing with a big-ticket banner like YRF Entertainment. I also asked executive producer Yogendra Mogre for his inputs here, all the more because neither Suresh (for whom this is her first full-scale Hindi debut) and Apte has earlier worked with Aditya Chopra’s banner.
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Shetty and Moghe candidly admitted that it was a joint creative direction based on the script. The Hindi dialogues are being done by Abbas Dalal and Hussain Dalal, as Shetty has spare knowledge of Hindi. But it was clear that a South Indian girl would play Bhavini while a girl from Mumbai would portray Radhika.
Tanya Bami, Series Head, Netflix India, raved about the project, and stated that when Shetty and YRF brought the subject to the platform they just had to go ahead with it.
Tanvi Azmi, Mahesh Manjrekar, Diptii Salvi, Anshuman Pushkar and Monika Panwar are also in the cast. Aditya Chopra and Akshaye Widwani are co-executive producers. John Stewart Eduri scores music. The series streams on Netflix from October 30.
