Acting and producing is difficult: Sarah

Known for working on broadway, big screen, acting and producing, Sarah Megan Thomas’s latest ‘A Call to Spy’ was released on Amazon Prime Video on Friday.

A story based on women during World War II, Bollywood’s Radhika Apte made her Hollywood debut in the movie. Sarah took some time off to talk to Metrolife about being an actor, writer and producer of the film.

The movie has released on an OTT for the Indian audience. How excited are you?

I’m thrilled that Amazon has released the film and I’m really excited for the Indian audience to just see Radhika Apte playing Noor. She’s so fantastic in the film and I don’t know how many fans she already has but she’s wonderful in this one.

Have you seen Radhika’s work before? What about it convinced you to cast her?

I had, actually. When I was interviewing for directors and other actors, I came across Radhika when I watched ‘Parched’. I fell in love with her performance and for the role of Noor, she was my first choice. Our director also loved her and Radhika agreed to join in too.

There aren’t too many films made on women during the war. What was your research process like when writing?

I started with the research in terms of archives. There are files and files of these women and I wanted there to be tonnes and tonnes of real research to stay true to arc these women’s lives, but at the end of the day, you have to make a movie and the plot has to move along. So when research is done, you go back to the concept and themes of the actual film. In this scenario, it’s how women of different nationalities and religions united to resist the common evil.

Where there any jarring stories you came across during research?

I think what was the most jarring is how these women were reviewed in training records. So for example, with Radhika’s character Noor, there’s a quote ‘not overburdened with brains if this girl is to spy on Winston Churchill’. Yes, she went on to become one of the most heroic women of all times, and when she was captured and tortured, she tried to escape and never give up any information. There is a difference between how these women were perceived back in London and how heroic they were at the end of the day. They were like female soldiers. I’ll say that’s the most inspiring thing in the research.

Was it difficult being the producer and the actor?

It was really difficult because producing is very much planning ahead, fixing problems and making everybody happy. And acting is being in the moment. I had many tricks, from putting on the wooden leg and listening to Churchill’s speeches before I went on as an actress to just in that space. But I was also really lucky to be working with such amazing actresses and they just really helped out your A-game.

What was it like working with a crew of mostly women?

It was a lot of fun. But you know, I love working with men too. We had a male cinematographer. But for this specific war story about the hidden theme of war heroes to have a female cast, production designer, composer and so on, just to have that balance was really refreshing.