Meena:murder in mind

In a week of high drama and tension, we catch up with Paige Sandhu, who plays Meena Jutla in Emmerdale

Once again, Meena finds herself at the centre of all the drama. Do you enjoy playing this character?

I really love playing Meena. She’s a dream part and I love playing on the fact that she’s a psychopath and she doesn’t feel emotions the way the rest of us do. I’ve enjoyed figuring that out, doing the research into it, understanding what that would feel like. Also, I love her relationship with Manpreet as there’s a lot of history between them. It’s interesting that the one person she can feel any semblance of love for is Manpreet. It’s fun to dive into that and to go to these places that you wouldn’t ever do in normal life. Murdering someone, without feeling any guilt, doing everything you can to get what you want. The manipulation is a fun thing to play. The only time her mask is taken down completely is when she’s about to murder someone and then the victim is the only person that gets to see the real Meena.

How does it feel to be involved in such an ambitious week of drama?

It’s like a dream come true. It’s so much fun; the stunts, travelling to the different locations, the well-written scenes, all the different aspects involved, the cast. It’s all so exciting.

What’s the atmosphere been like on set?

Everyone’s been mucking in and enjoying it. They’re long days and the difficult terrain makes it hard for the crew, but because it’s so different from our usual day-to-day, everyone is really enjoying it and grateful for the chance to be involved. Also, for over a year we’ve had to be two metres apart but because we’ve isolated and created a bubble, we’ve been able to have so much fun and be near each other. It’s been incredible.

What do you enjoy the most about working on location?

It makes it easier to act. With the cliffside and the river, all the surroundings make it feel so much more real. In a studio, you have to imagine the fourth wall which you don’t have to do on location. Plus, the weather has been great too.

Emmerdale is filming some of its biggest ever stunts right now, are the cast enjoying the drama of it all?

I absolutely love it. It has been my favourite time on Emmerdale so far and I think that has been the general consensus with all the cast and crew. Everybody was just really sad to be returning to normal filming as it’s been the most amazing time ever and we have all just been really grateful to be a part of it. I am looking forward to seeing it. I don’t generally like to watch myself but because the stunts are so incredible and we’ve had all the fancy camera equipment, I think it is hopefully going to be epic Emmerdale. So, I will definitely watch it. From the clips I’ve seen so far, it’s going to be cool and exciting.

When it comes to someone standing in the way of what she wants, she will kill!

Did you have a stunt double?

I had a few stunt doubles throughout this project. In fact, one was a man and he was quite a tall man too. He had to wear a brown wig with plaits in, as Meena has plaits for this week of filming. It was strange to see this tall man walking around half looking like me. When we were doing white water rafting, the cast did it on a green screen but the stunt doubles did it for real in the river. It was great to see them working.

Meena has her sights set on Victoria and will do anything to get her out of the way. Can you tell us what she has planned?

Meena doesn’t like Victoria as she’s so meddlesome and won’t leave David alone. When Meena finds out they’re in love, it triggers something in her. Meena doesn’t set out to kill for the thrill. Even though she does enjoy it, she doesn’t need to kill for the excitement. However, when it comes to someone standing in the way of what she wants, she will kill. Victoria is standing in the way of what she wants, which is David. She tampers with Victoria’s abseiling pack and is really excited to start the survival challenge because she gets to watch Victoria die. Plus, she wants to see David suffer because he’s essentially cheated on her and seeing Victoria die will do just that. Her number one priority is to get rid of Victoria any way she can, so I’d say Victoria is in a lot of trouble.