Having already sat down with director Gurinder Chadha, and lead actress Gillian Anderson – we then had the pleasure of speaking to two of the most important characters in Viceroy’s House, representing the religious divide that led to the partition in India in 1947, Huma Qureshi and Manish Dayal.
The pair, wanting nothing more than to follow their hearts and fall in love, struggle to do given Aalia (Qureshi) is a muslim, and Jeet (Dayal) a hindu, and yet are separated by their religious beliefs – and it’s an issue that is still going on today, and Dayal drew parallels to the Trump campaign.
“The disbelief we had when Trump was on the rise that he would succeed, sort of mirrors the disbelief that so many indians had about the partition, that it would be divided and these things would happen,” he said.
Qureshi then added, “There is something to take from this film, it’s so relevant and I guess when talking about Brexit or Trump or the migration crisis that is going on, it’s really sad, but that’s what the film is talking about, prejudice, it’s about criminalising a particular community and saying we need to separate them from the rest of the population because they look different, they dress differently, they have different religious beliefs, and as long as that exists, these problems are almost cyclical, and that’s really sad,” she finished. “So as people and as actors we were very aware that this is a film that is saying very clearly that this is a human problem and we should stop looking at it from a national, or religious point of view, we should look at other people with empathy and kindness.”
They also spoke about working with Chadha on what is a very personal project for the director, and Qureshi explains how the Indian population have responded to this film, which offers an alternative view on the Mountbattens. Dayal, as an American, also discussed what he took away from making this movie, and what he learnt about his own background and identity.
Viceroy’s House is released on March 3rd, and you can read our review here.
