Panchayat’s Prahlad, Faisal Malik felt he won’t be able to do the death scene: ‘Somehow I did it, people are liking it’

Faisal Malik, who plays Prahlad Pandey, the assistant pradhan of Phulera in Panchayat, had a major storyline in the second season of the Amazon Prime Video series. Prahlad’s son Rahul Pandey, an Indian Army soldier, is martyred in war. Prahlad, who had already lost his parents and his wife, had only one family member left – his son. In a scene from the series, Prahlad is seen sitting alone in his house as he mourns his son’s death, and later breaks down in front of his friends as he speaks about having no family left. Also Read| Panchayat’s Rinki aka Sanvikaa reacts to her new-found fame, says now parents ‘have stopped sending me job posts’

Faisal revealed that he wasn’t confident about filming the scene and made several late-night requests to remove it from the script. He also recalled going into complete isolation to prepare for the role.

Asked about his first reaction after he read the script, Faisal told Quint, “I said don’t do this, I won’t be able to do it. You’re putting too much faith in me due to your love for me, but I won’t be able to do it. I even called them two to three times at night asking them to change it and said, ‘bhai this is very serious.’ But they had to do it and they kept telling me that you can do it. I took time in understanding how to do it. Somehow I did it and people are liking it. I thought they wouldn’t like it. I didn’t even watch it.”

Neena Gupta, who plays Manju Devi in the series, also shared, “I’ll tell you how it happened, he is not telling you. That day, we didn’t see him since morning. I found out that the director had told him ‘you won’t talk to anyone. You sit quietly in a corner. Prepare yourself.’ His hair had to be shaved, he was not talking to anybody. He became completely isolated. I met him after the shot in the evening and I asked, ‘What’s happened? You’re not even talking to us today.'” Faisal added that this continued for four-five days, and everyday someone would find him in tears.”

The Amazon Prime Video series also stars Jitendra Kumar, Raghubir Yadav, and Sanvikaa. Directed by Deepak Kumar Mishra and written by Chandan Kumar, Panchayat revolves around Abhishek Tripathi (Jitendra), an engineering graduate who for lack of a better job option, joins as secretary of a panchayat office in a remote village named Phulera in Uttar Pradesh.