Oct 26, 2026 4:00pm IST
Radhika Apte on Bringing Masculine Energy with Her Character Rudra in ‘Akka’: ‘She’s Not On The Side of Women’ (EXCLUSIVE)
Keerthy Suresh and Radhika Apte star in the series “Akka,” a crime-thriller project, set in 1980s Pernunu, a fictional South Indian city ruled by a powerful matriarchal society. While the characters are at loggerheads with each other, Suresh plays Bhavani, the ruler of Pernunu, and Apte plays Rudra, a gangster from Mumbai who aims at dismantling the matriarchal hegemony.
The two seemingly bring in the contrasts of Shiva and Parvati, with their names being Bhavani and Rudra in the series. When asked about the same, both the actors exclaim that the two characters are “morally ambiguous” with none as completely right or wrong. Apte also opens up about whether she is bringing masculine energy to the set up as “Rudra” against Suresh’s “Bhavani.” She says, “I do, actually. I have a lot of things she says are quite problematic and quite masculine. But the more you understand the character, the more you see where it is coming from.”
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Radhika Apte further adds, “She’s not on the side of women. That is because she is not on her side at all. There’s zero self-love.”
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Keerthy Suresh shares that the series does not draw a clear line between the protagonist and the antagonist. She adds, “You cannot say who’s the hero and who’s the villain. It depends on your perspective. It depends on who is carrying the story and which side you are on.” Radhika quips, “The show is not about women, per se. It is a gangster story about two women. It’s not going to be different in a more feminist or woman-empowering way. It is an entertaining gangster epic. We have done a lot of research on matriarchal gangs and businesses.”
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