Dia Mirza says she vomited after filming rape scene in Kaafir, recalls feeling emotionally shattered: ‘I was shaking physically’ | Bollywood News

Six years after its digital debut, director Sonam Nair’s streaming series Kaafir has received a new lease of life with the show undergoing another round of editing and re-releasing as a movie. Revolving around a Pakani woman, Kainaaz Akhtar, played Dia Mirza, who ends up in India after accidentally crossing the border and is eventually imprisoned under suspicions of being a militant, the series had grabbed quite a bit of attention upon its initial release — particularly for the themes it explored, certain hard-hitting scenes and, beyond all, the performance of Dia.
(Trigger warning: The following paragraphs contain mentions of rape. Reader discretion advised). While the show-turned-movie offered her ample space to explore the lengths and breadths of her acting talent, Dia Mirza recently shared that one scene, in particular, was extremely difficult to shoot and left her completely shattered afterwards. The actor also revealed that she even threw up following the filming of the emotionally and physically demanding scene that featured a rape.
“I remember when we shot the rape scene; it was so hard. I was shaking physically after we got done with filming that scene. I remember throwing up. I vomited after we finished rolling that entire sequence. That’s how emotionally and physically demanding those situations were. When you take your entire body into the truth of that moment, you feel it. You feel it in its full extent,” she shared during a chat with CNN-News18 Showsha.
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Watch Dia Mirza’s Kaafir trailer here:

Nonetheless, Dia revealed that playing the character of Kainaaz helped her grow as a person, instilling motherly feelings in her before she became one in real life. “I think the first and most important thing one needs to feel as an art is empathy towards the character that you’re playing and embodying. So that when you play, you’re absolutely true to the story and to everything within it. Playing Kainaaz actually made me a mother much before I became a biological mother. It was because of the kind of intensity and ferocity and love and protectiveness I felt for her while working on the show,” she added.
Penned Bhavani Iyer, the Dia Mirza-starrer’s official synopsis on IMDb reads, “[Kaafir] follows Kainaaz Akhtar, a Pakani woman falsely imprisoned as a militant. Journal Vedant discovers her and her daughter, who was born in prison. Motivated a strong sense of justice, he embarks on a mission to uncover the truth.” Kaafir is currently streaming on ZEE5.