![]() ![]() When the audition came through for Lady Parts, I was like, “Who the hell is this woman who’s managed to hack my laptop?” I was, like, suspicious. I’d actually written a script about an all-brown-girl punk band, and the lead character was called Zyra. When I went to audition for We Are Lady Parts, I remember feeling, This is bigger than me. I wasn’t sure if I’d have to audition, because I’d worked with her a couple of times, but no, I auditioned and got the part. I didn’t even know she had made this or was in the process of developing it. Like anyone, the audition came through my agents. I think we met up a couple times for a coffee, and I did Doctor Who with her. RA: When We Are Lady Parts got green-lit as a series, scheduling meant I wasn’t able to do it. Ritu, I’m curious if you stayed in touch with Nida after you worked together on the We Are Lady Parts short. There are these moments that I have with my brothers that no one else understands. Their dancing stupidly in the living room wasn’t originally in the script, either. When I was video-ing Priya, and Lena is like, “You’re awesome, you’re amazing,” that’s how I am when I’m helping my younger brother do an audition tape. I really wanted to pull that out of the script more. ![]() ![]() Lena doesn’t want to get out of bed because she’s in this dark place, but then she helps Ria with her videos. RA: I’ve got two brothers, one older, one younger, so I had so much to draw on - how much I feel a responsibility to support my younger brother especially. That relationship is very close to me, and it was one of the things that really attracted me to the entire project. I grew up seeing Ria and Lena in my life. Two of my cousins are very much like my sisters. ![]() How did you each approach playing sisters? Do you have siblings? It’s contagious - that openness, that spreading of sunshine. What did I learn from you? I want to say the positivity and bright energy you brought. I was like, “These are also potential questions that I can ask myself about Ria.” That’s one thing that I learned from you: to be more curious and to never be scared of questioning. She questioned the script: “Why did Lena walk into the room in the first place? I don’t even think she would have stayed here for that long.” It was really empowering to see somebody ask questions to the director, to the writer. Priya Kansara: Ritu has this incredible curiosity. What would you say you learned from one another while making this film? “We both felt like we lived our dreams, and we got to do it together,” Kansara says. They hold hands, with Kansara’s gold-glitter fingernails catching the light they make full eye contact when sharing memories from the set, reciprocally delighted by each other’s presence. Seated together at the Soho Grand Hotel in New York, Kansara and Arya exude the same effervescent chemistry that makes their work in Polite Society so endearing. And so Polite Society barrels through a whirlwind of dry comedy, high-energy fight scenes, and sisterly bickering as Ria sets out on a mission to save Lena from the “ Stepford Wife cardigan phase” she’s worried will separate the two forever. But when Lena drops out of school and starts dating the handsome and wealthy geneticist Salim (Akshay Khanna), coveted by all the Muslim aunties as a prime arranged-marriage candidate, Ria goes ballistic, convinced that Salim and his mother, Raheela (Nimra Bucha), have nefarious plans for Lena. For their entire lives, the pair has supported each other creatively (younger sister Ria wants to be a stuntwoman, while older sister Lena goes to art school) and withstood their parents’ gentle concerns and the more overt judgment of their conservative community. In Polite Society, the debut feature film from We Are Lady Parts creator Nida Manzoor, Priya Kansara and Ritu Arya play Ria and Lena, Pakistani British sisters on the edge of a cataclysmic estrangement. Polite Society stars Ritu Arya (left) and Priya Kansara (right). ![]()
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