Last weekend, Kajol made her web series debut with The Trial, the Indian adaptation of The Good Wife, in which she plays a wife and mother who rediscovers herself when she is compelled to go back to work as a lawyer after her husband (played by Jisshu Sengupta) is embroiled in a sex and corruption scandal. t2 caught up with Kajol on being Noyonika Sengupta on the Disney+Hotstar show, this phase of her career and her kids’ reaction to her films.

What made you want to be a part of an adaptation of The Good Wife?

The very first reason is the fact that I am a fan of the original show. It’s one of the first shows that I ever binge-watched. I love Alicia’s character (Alicia Florrick, played by Julianna Margulies) and Mr Big (Chris Noth, who plays Alicia’s husband Peter Florrick) and all the other characters. I could play Mr Big (Chris Noth was called Big in the Sex and the City series), but since they offered me Alicia, I went with her! (Laughs)

I loved the show and I wanted to do it (the adaptation) for sure! I also wanted to hear and see how they had adapted it. That was my major concern. That’s because India is a completely different story altogether. It’s a different culture and we speak differently. Hindi aur English mein bahut fark hota hain. What one can say in Hindi can be made understood only in Hindi and there are certain things that can be conveyed only in English. If it was going to be Hinglish — as they put it — what was it going to sound like and what were these people going to look like....

Honestly, I was a little hesitant about it but once I heard it, I said: ‘Okay, I like this! I am on board.’ I liked the fact that all the (legal) cases have been changed to what works in today’s day and time, what we can recognise easily and what we can’t and what pushes our buttons. I liked the way Suparn (S. Varma, the creator and director of the show) had written it. No matter what, you end up liking these characters, even if they may be doing something which is ethically wrong. I like the fact that after watching these characters do what they do, the viewer is left with a question mark at the end.

Suparn Varma says that The Trial starts where all of Kajol’s films have ended... where Raj and Simran from DDLJ walk into the sunset and then many years later, they are left with a ‘what if?’ It’s an interesting perspective... do you agree?

(Laughs) That isn’t exactly what I thought of when I was offered the show, but it’s an interesting way to look at it. I just thought I was playing Noyonika Sengupta. She is not Simran and she is not Anjali (from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai).

Noyonika seems to be an extension of you....

She is a working woman, and so there is a lot of me in that. She has that 9-6 clock in her, and even I have that. If I have to be at work at 9am, I will have everything sorted and arranged beforehand. I would have already back-calculated the time taken in traffic and so on. It’s a working woman’s mindset which is very much a part of me and is also a part of Noyonika.

How is she different from you? Of course, her circumstances are very different....

Circumstances are very, very different. Honestly, I don’t know whether I would be happy giving up working for so long like Noyonika. I did for a big period of time, but I always got back to acting, I always continued. Noyonika is different from me in the sense that she gave up almost every part of her to become Mrs Sengupta and then had to go back and find out who Noyonika was, what her likes and dislikes are and how she now has to stand up and fight for herself and not the rest of the world.

Not to generalise, but that’s what a lot of women, especially in India, face when they get married and have a family....

Absolutely! And I think that’s true of women all over the world. As soon as we have kids, they become a huge focus. I read this quote somewhere that you don’t know how it feels to put your heart out of your chest till you find it beating inside your child. That’s what most women feel when they have kids... ‘that’s a part of me, that’s an extension... that’s my heart’. How do you function without it? I went through this when I had Nysa. For the first two-and-a-half years, I felt that this is an extension of me that I have to carry on set. She was my baby bump with a personality that I had to carry on my hip constantly.

Somewhere down the line, you lose the importance of who you are. And then there is the self-discovery process that most women have to go through again and again. It’s a part of one’s growth.

In the last few projects, you have played mothers of various kinds — the dysfunctional mother in Tribhanga, the helpless mother with a terminally ill son in Salaam Venky, and the mother who gains agency and then loses it in a twist in Lust Stories. Would you say Noyonika in The Trial is the closest to who you are as a mother?

I would like to believe so. But I think Noyonika is more closed and more guarded than I am with my children. I am much more open with my kids... they have seen me cry, they have seen me laugh, they have seen me do a lot of mad things as well. They know that being mad runs in their genes! (Laughs) They know it’s okay to be mad once in a while.

Did you have to tap into the Bengali side of you in any way to play Noyonika?

I did have to tap into the Bengali side of me. She is Sengupta at the end of the day (smiles). But I don’t speak Bengali on the show.

I remember in one scene your character was asked something in Bangla and you went: ‘Hyan’, which is as Bengali as it can get....

All my Bengali relatives would have sat on my head if I hadn’t even said that much! (Laughs) Utna tak toh I can manage.

On a lighter note and given the theme of The Trial, are you someone who will invariably win an argument no matter who the opposite party is?

I am definitely going to be the louder one, for sure! (Laughs) I eventually win just on the strength of my volume!

How would you describe this phase of your career? Would you say it’s the 2.0 of Kajol, given the frequency of projects and the variety of work you are doing?

I am definitely working a lot more than before. I wouldn’t say 2.0, but it definitely is another step.

Do your children watch your work?

They love me too much to watch my work... at least that’s their explanation behind it! My son (Yug) keeps saying: ‘Mom, please! I can’t watch you cry. I love you too much!’ How do I argue with that? Like a little candle, I melt in front of that (laughs).

Do you buy that reason?

I do, I do. Both of them watched Salaam Venky and my son was very upset. He was like: ‘Mama, I love you and won’t leave you.’ And I promised him that I won’t make him watch such a sad film of mine ever again (laughs).

Maybe you should show him some of your happy stuff....

I have shown him. But he wants me to do a film where I don’t cry at all!

Priyanka RoyWhich is your favourite mother character played by Kajol on screen? Tellt2@abp.in