Acclaimed lyricist and film writer Javed Akhtar once compared Richa Chadha to something of a dynamo as far as acting is concerned.
Since she made her debut in the film Oye Lucky Lucky Oye in 2008, Richa Chadha is among the few recent new-wave actors who have established themselves as the talent to watch out for, despite working in an industry heavily skewed towards stars and their relatives. Among her recent successes are the web series Inside Edge for Amazon that’s already green-lit for a second season and her turn as Bholi Punjaban in Fukrey Returns which mopped up neat box-office collections pegged at approximately the Rs. 80 crore mark.
I meet Chadha in her tastefully done Versova apartment adorned with knick-knacks that she has picked up from travel around the world. She has just returned from an audition and is rather upbeat. This Delhi girl has taken to Mumbai like a fish to water juggling a demanding career with house duties that she does all by herself. She lets slip that she likes to cycle around her neighbourhood and run errands herself quite like the Hollywood stars in LA who don’t think much of walking up to a shop and getting a coffee. Fussing over her pet cat Kamli, and making the crew comfortable, she settles down to a no-holds-barred chat.
Growing up in Delhi, she displayed early signs of one destined to a life in the spotlight. She would stuff a cushion beneath her shirt, sketch a French beard and put on the spectacles to imitate ‘Professor Sa’ab’, a moniker for her father. Richa admits she loved the adulation that came her way.
After an illustrious academic stint at the prestigious Sardar Patel school followed by graduation from St. Stephen’s in Delhi and then Sophia College in Mumbai, her first brush with Bollywood took place during her internship as a correspondent at Man’s World, a lifestyle magazine dedicated to male readership, Chadha had to call celebrities like Sherlyn Chopra, Shruti Seth, Sophie Chowdhary and Abhay Deol for interviews. Between much laughter, we agree that it was rather an ironic stint!
Watch: Richa Chadha gets candid with Priyanka Sinha Jha in the sixth episode of Expresso
Coincidentally, Chadha landed her debut film role soon afterwards with Abhay Deol as a co-star in Oye Lucky Lucky Oye. Chadha who trained in theatre under Barry John and has since then made quite a few lauded turns in films like Masaan and Gangs of Wasseypur –in which she transforms from a young woman to an aged matriarch. Now fresh from the success of middle-of-the-road entertainers like Fukrey and Fukrey Returns, and international projects like Love Soniya and Three Stories, the young actor is on the hunt for her next big strike.
But recognition was not served to her on a platter. It came only after unrelenting perseverance. Acclaimed lyricist and film writer Javed Akhtar compares her to something of a dynamo as far as acting is concerned, a compliment that Chadha cherishes. But, she swiftly recalls the panic that set in when she met her illustrious co-stars like Manoj Bajpayee, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Piyush Mishra among others during the filming of Gangs of Wasseypur. “I knew they were manjha hua actors and I was to play against them. So between August and December that year, I would do some kind of work every month to keep up my game. I went to Pondicherry and do a workshop, I did a play in Mumbai to get warmed up. The funny thing is that once you become famous, and your life becomes fancy the one thing you are not doing is acting regularly.”
Chadha’s conversations are remarkably different in that they go beyond the facetious stuff about studio politics and co-star scandals. For instance, the business model of cinema worries her as she feels not enough is being done by stakeholders to increase its reach. Citing the example of Masaan which was showcased in the Un Certain Regard category at Cannes and won the Prix Avenir Prometteur (A Promising Future) award had lower visibility than her Netflix series Inside Edge.
“A simple comparison is not possible nowadays between films that are star-vehicles and small films and because of various factors like high taxation, distribution across very few screens and so on.”
The young actor counts herself fortunate that she is working with the likes of Excel Entertainment who put their faith in talented actors as much as stars.
Given the rivalry between actors, I quiz her about the conundrum of two actresses being friends and she immediately rattles off a long list of her women friends in showbiz like Kalki Koechlin, Sayani Gupta, Mallika Dua etc.
According to her, such perceptions arise because show business feeds off insecurities and most people take a while to wisen up to these dynamics. Gender-based stereotypes and perceptions, we agree, are way too many in the film industry.
She recalls how in her early days she was often referred to as talented, versatile etc. and it took just a few photo-shoots to change that version of her to bold, seductive etc. “It’s all about perception, one person can easily be both.”
A showbiz career she cautions comes with the pressure of sometimes not being happy about something in oneself and things going out of control—it could be one’s smile, one’s weight or just about anything. This is the kind of pressure that led her to an eating disorder.
“When you become an actor you start noticing your flaws. Till then I thought I was perfect. In showbiz people say all kinds of things like ‘your nostrils are too big’, and at that time you don’t even think that as a smart, capable, well-traveled person, you will succumb to pressure and do something stupid and self-destructive. What I learned later from it was that it can happen to anyone so I dealt with it (her eating disorder) and I’m back to being healthy,” recalls the actress.
Quite the feminist, Chadha has a rather strong opinion on the #MeToo controversy raging in the west. Her reading of the situation is that a similar expose is unlikely to happen in India because with no royalty system in place to fall back on, a whistleblower could find herself out of work and struggling to make ends meet if he would dare to come out.
“Women shouldn’t have to quit (work) because they have to deal with a predator at work,” asserts Chadha making a point that may have been missed out in the sound and fury surrounding the issue. Hopefully, vocal new-gen members of showbiz like her will bring about that change.