Karisma Kapoor gets a striking makeover in director Abhinay Deo’s upcoming ZEE5 show, Brown. Playing the troubled investigator, Rita Brown, Karisma takes on a role fraught with complexity as she channels the character’s innate anger and frustration through her bluish green eyes. Set in the gritty bylanes, bureaucratic indoors and chirpy media houses of Kolkata, the show features a visual landscape that is new for Karisma, who sheds her popular image of a romance lead from the 90s.

“I had said no to the series, like I normally do to most of the work that comes my way,” reveals Karisma. Abhinay gives some insight into why the actor might have said no to the show. “While introducing her character, I told Karisma that Rita Brown is a chain smoker and an alcoholic, who just wakes up and goes to her job like it’s a huge burden. I told Karisma that she shouldn’t do much makeup and set her hair. Maybe I was a bit too explicit in pitching the show,” smiles Abhinay.

Karisma adds, “No, I think that was the challenge. Because I don’t do things that Rita does. I am not a drinker or a smoker. People see me in a different light, and this was stripped of everything possible. That was the beauty of it,” says Karisma.

That’s what excited her on set every day in extremely hot conditions when they were shooting in Kolkata in June. “First, we were trying to deal with the heat, but then Abhinay came to me one day and said, ‘Make the sweat your character’. So, there were no touch-ups or anything. I would just crush my shirt further and give my shot,” says Karisma.

Brown is adapted from the book ‘City of Death’ by Abheek Barua, and Karisma read it before the shoot. Her co-star, Jisshu Sengupta, however, felt that reading the script was enough. The Bengali actor plays a psychiatrist in the show, helping Rita make sense of the case and her emotions. As a creative person, Jisshu says he learns more from lived-in experiences than from reading a book.

“I am not saying that reading is bad, and it’s not that I don’t read at all. If something interests me, I might. I have acted in many biopics, but I have never read those biographies. Reading is secondary for me, but it’s the experiences and environment that are important. I learn from people around me,” says Jisshu.

Sharing her thoughts on the process of taking the written word to screen, Karisma says, “We cannot always go by what’s written on paper. Sometimes we may do readings of the script sitting in a room but when we go on set, it may not look good.” Jisshu adds, “The environment is extremely important during a shoot, not just for the actors but also for the technicians and even the editor, who is going to edit the show later and was not on the set.”

It is the environment that strikes out in Brown. With a tinge of yellow and blue in the visuals that add a sense of mystery to the rich production design, the series is mindfully filmed to recreate the eeriness in the tale.

“Before we went on floors, I had some words in my mind about the show which I wanted to share with the team. One of them was ‘uncomfortable’, and I told everyone that the entire series should leave everyone feeling that way. So, the choices of colour, framing, texture, and props are designed to make audiences feel uneasy. I didn’t want it to look normal, as everyone is used to normal,” Abhinay says.

The show also marks Karisma’s second release after her comeback in 2024 with Murder Mubarak. The actor has taken breaks in her career, the longest of them being after her marriage in 2003. The 2012 romantic thriller Dangerous Ishq marked her comeback film after over a decade. Has taking a break from acting changed her perspective on the craft? “It does change, but acting is like swimming or riding a bicycle. You never forget that; it’s ingrained in you,” she says, adding that she took a different route in her life. “When I come back on set now, it has to be exciting enough. Otherwise, I am happy not being on set,” she says.

The actor also notes how the industry has changed since the time she used to work extensively in the 90s. “I have done films where there were no scripts. We would not even know our dialogues when we were on set. I had grown in the industry seeing a time like that, and now everything is so detailed; we have bound scripts, we do rehearsals and meetings,” she says and concludes, “The sincerity, however, remains the same. Whether it is giving a good shot and the team being in the same space, doing their best. That emotion has not changed in thirty years.”

Brown will be available to stream on ZEE5 from June 5