Exclusive! Waluscha De Sousa on Tanaav: No one imagined I would play a Kashmiri village girl

Actress Waluscha De Sousa will be seen in a never-seen-before avatar in the upcoming web series, Tanaav essaying the role of a Kashmiri village girl named Zainaab. Considering the fact that the actress has always been seen in glamorous roles and was a fashion model in the initial years of her career, she explained why the image break was important for her.

The show Tanaav is set in Kashmir and revolves around the story of a special operation to track down a terrorist Umar Riyaz who is on a mission to fight for the freedom of Kashmir. The show is the Indian adaptation of the Israeli TV series Fauda.

Waluscha told OTTplay, " I wasn't lucky enough to get approached by the casting team to bag the role for Tanaav, rather I was running after them; because no one ever imagined me to play a Kashmiri woman like the way I did for Tanaav. It wasn't a glamorous role that I have done in the past. When I watched the original TV series Fauda and liked it I had a wish of playing some of such women in my career as an actor. The day I got to know that an Indian adaptation of Fauda is in making, I started cheesing the makers."

She continued, " I remember I recorded my audition and put it to the casting team because I really wanted to prove my skill as an actor breaking the stereotype I faced so far. Here I am playing a simple Kashmiri housewife and a mother of two children but the husband is a terrorist. I had no makeup, had to speak in Urdu and Kashmiri and had so much more!"

So eventually after rounds of auditions, she finally proved her mettle to bag the role.

While in the show, the graph of the character has an interesting twist and turns, asked about how she established the connection with Zainaab, Waluscha shared more.

"You know she is part of a battle that is not her own. She is supporting a cause, that is not her dream completely but that of her husband whom she is madly in love with and married to. When you are in love, you do things to any extent possible. But she is a mother too, and when it comes to being a supportive wife and a protective mother, she had to opt out for one! There comes the dilemma and her action speaks volume!" explained the actress.

The show also features Arbaaz Khan, Danish Husain, Rajat Kapoor, Ekta Kaul, Manav Vij, Shashak Arora, Sukhmani Sadana, Waluscha De Sousa and Zarina Wahab.

Written by Ishan Trivedi and Sudhir Mishra, and produced by Sameer Nair under the banner Applause Entertainment, Tanaav will be released on November 11 on Sony LIV.