When the first season of Indian drama series Delhi Crime debuted on Netflix in March 2019, the rave reviews and accolades (which included Best Drama Series wins at the International Emmys and at the Asian Academy Creative Awards) cemented it as a prestige title in the crime genre. Lead actress Shefali Shah, who plays deputy commissioner of police Vartika Chaturvedi, found that the acclaim for Season 1 exceeded any expectations she’d had going into the project. “We created it because we wanted to create it, not because we wanted to be winners, not because we expected the show to hit through the roof, not because we expected Vartika to become something larger than life,” she says. “We just went out and did what we really love, and it was accepted as much as we loved it.”

The series’ first season was based on the real-life Nirbhaya case, a horrific gang rape that occurred in Delhi in 2012. Showrunner Richie Mehta spent six years researching the actual events and spending time with the real-life officers who closed the case, and he received permission from the family of the victim, Jyoti Singh. Season 2 was helmed by Tanuj Chopra, the award-winning writer-director known for Grin (2017), Staycation (2018), and Punching at the Sun (2006). The second installment follows a series of murders in South Delhi as Vartika and her colleagues work to solve a case that ties back to a gang from the 1990s. 

Shah, known around the world for her role as Ria Verma in Monsoon Wedding, shares with Queue her approach to Season 2 and what the amazing response has meant to her. 

An edited version of the conversation follows.

Queue: What was your first reaction when you heard about the story of Season 2 and what made you want to be a part of it
Shefali Shah: Well, Delhi Crime is extremely close to me and I’m very possessive about it and Vartika. I can’t imagine not being a part of Delhi Crime. Even before I heard the story or read the script, I was like, Of course, I want to be a part of Delhi Crime. The thing is that with Season 1 we were dealing with a true life incident. In Season 2, we are not. Of course, it has a history — the show carries the history of an incident that happened earlier, much earlier. It’s not on the timeline of the show, but it’s happened. And that has a big effect on what actually transpires in the timespan of the show, in the timespan of these five days.

Tell us about Vartika and how she has changed. 
SS: Honestly, you don’t change as a person. Not drastically. In Delhi Crime Season 1, we were talking about 2012; in Delhi Crime Season 2, we’re talking about 2013. So it’s not like a drastic, life-altering change that’s going to come across in Vartika. Her values, her beliefs, her strengths, her weaknesses, they still stay the same but obviously every situation is going to garner a different kind of reaction from her. The first season was a very personal one for her. The Nirbhaya case by itself was very personal to all of us and it affected all of us deeply, but here in Season 2 she is completely in work mode. The strength that you see here is that she doesn’t just do her job right when she’s emotionally consumed by something. She does it right, irrespective. What’s really different is that she wears jeans and boots. She’s like, “Yo, man,” and she carries a holster, and she’s wearing her bulletproof vest. She’s carrying a gun and she’s into the action.

Did you do anything different to prepare for Season 2?
SS: You get into the same mindset, of course. We had a more researched script in the first season. Our director had put in six years of work, and it was from actual transcripts that were out in the public domain. Season 2 is a created mystery. It’s a created whodunit. It’s a five- or six-day span. Every small thing that is said, done, or felt has a domino effect. So you have to keep that in mind while you’re working on it and ask: What is her trajectory? Not just emotionally, but physically. How many hours has she been awake? What was her last adrenaline rush when she had a breakthrough? And, of course, her relationship with her daughter, her relationship with each and every individual character. What is the last interaction she had with somebody? So, really, a lot of small, small things go into it. It’s a lot of hard work.

What does it mean for an actor to have a global audience?
SS: It’s amazing. When you do a film, it has a shelf life of a weekend. If it does well, it has a shelf life of two weekends, but if it doesn’t, then it’s lost before it’s even released. It’s gone. People may never watch it and it’s just lost. A lot of people didn’t watch Delhi Crime in the first week or first 10 days, and now still, I have people coming up to me, saying, “Oh my god, we watched it. Why didn’t we watch it till now?” There are some who watch it like 10 times! I don’t know how you can watch Delhi Crime 10 times, but they have. So it’s fantastic!

What has it meant for you to see the overwhelmingly positive response to Season 2 of Delhi Crime?
SS: Overwhelming is the word! The fact that Season 2 received as much applause as Season 1 — [the feeling] was out of this world. It was so so . . . just amazing that Delhi Crime Season 2 and Delhi Crime Season 1 were both top shows on the chart when they dropped. Fingers crossed [for] another Emmy.