Actress Sanghmitra Hitaishi who was recently seen alongside Sonakshi Sinha in Dahaad, speaks to The Pioneer about the characters she’d never portray, working in the global platform, and more.
SHIKHA DUGGAL
Sanghmitra Hitaishi loses herself in her roles so deeply. Her performance in the cult classic Lajwanti made us observe her ability to bring eccentricity to the role. It was a stylized performance! Fast forward to Dahaad, and we saw her giving a very realistic and dramatic performance of all time now. This made us go out of the ordinary to know her operating theory as an actress, widely known for not breaking the character until filming is over.
“If I talk about the top gear actors like Shah Rukh Khan or Salman Khan, they are offered their choices of scripts. But for an actor like me, the choice of scripts become very finite. So what’s next? I look for the director’s approach. There are actors in this industry who get really great scripts, but they do not have the vigilance to perform the role! I would love to work with someone like Reema Kagti or Alankrita Srivastava because they have proved their mettle. So I do know what I wouldn’t do in this industry. I will never portray a character that attributes itself to colourism, racism or sexism. I don’t want to go to that narrative of facing prejudices once again. Xenophobia in any manner is not okay for me! I have been offered such roles in the past, and like I said, I turned them down. Moving forward in life, when I am really older, I do not want to look back on the kind of projects that involve bigotry in my work.”
A little background research on the first female actress from our country to be part of Berlinale Talents Lab since its inception, made us also anamnesis on her roots connected to stage performances once upon a time. Revoking those memories with us, she continued, “From the time I have started to perform, I prefer to be in front of the camera. All the actors who are coming from a theatre background have their preferences, including the late Irrfan Khan. I call myself more of an internal actress! There are two very important attributes of performing on stage: one is discipline, and the other is equality. Both senior and junior actors are treated equally. I am used to not performing with retakes, and that invites such discipline in me that I can deliver my lines so promptly today. Now I don’t blink an eye when giving a take! Having said, it also installed a lot of confidence in me. I was used to performing for the public, with time it has gradually changed, and now fortunately or unfortunately, we are used to receiving feedback from the crew. It’s okay if it turns out to be an overreaction or underplayed sometimes but my confidence stands still! These are some of the reasons that will make you understand why some of the biggest stage actors couldn’t take off as mainstream heroes or heroines.”
Continuing this interesting conversation, she enunciates more, “Comedy is that one genre that I will be shit scared of doing! For example, to get your comic timing right before a Ratna Pathak Shah would be incredibly difficult for me. Frankly speaking, Bollywood does not know what to do with my face and hair till today! Evidently, my complexion is dusky and I have curly hair. An unusual combination for them, maybe? It’s the advent of OTT that is changing the diasporas for me personally. Streaming platforms need real people! In the beginning of my career I wasn’t receiving any empowering or serious roles because of the way I look. On the contrary, I’m a film nerd and looking at my own filmography I wasn’t happy. Then I saw a ray of hope when I heard about Indian actors being casted abroad. They were looking for actresses just like me and without any stereotypes! They never give me a disempowered role whether I was working in Europe or for the United States of America.”
In no time she was hanging around with Hollywood actors! She even remembers attending a mentorship program by Meryl Streep and Angelina Jolie and the next eight days were so unbelievable for her. She felt all her life she had some bad luck hovering around but now things were changing for the better. Post this mentorship program she started to get a lot of work in Europe, and her overseas spree began. Adding more to the spirit of working overseas, she expressed, “When on an Indian set we can share some inside jokes, it feels home because we have a shared background already. We are allowed to take leeway on an Indian set! On the other hand, if you’re working for a global cinema, the regulations on the sets are very disciplined. You cannot take a break in the middle of the shoot! Presently, I am shooting in Germany, and I’m observing that the assistant directors do not have to constantly tell the cast members what they have to do on the sets. If you go back to our own sets there is a certain hierarchy that we follow and that calls for unnecessary designations, adding to the crowd. There is no spotboy when you are working abroad; for instance, you have to make your own coffee. And I am doing this every day in Germany. Even if there is a Tom cruise on set or a Scarlett Johansson – no entourage will follow them. This only happens in the Hindi film industry! And with this question of yours, I am so happy to make a point here that there should be this fairness even in the Hindi film industry.”
By now, we have understood that she is a very knowledgeable actress, she has seen the coming together of power businesses, cultures, and ethnicities on which she conveys very openly, “Whether I am working in the United States of America, Europe or Germany right now-I always see some fascination towards our country. Nowadays, I tend to get a little nervous because it makes me feel I am representing the whole of India. And I don’t think I am the right person to do it. We have almost 18 film industries and what I find unfair is that all of them are put under the umbrella of Bollywood. The Vicky Kaushal starrer Masaan was not a Bollywood film at all! But one thing is for sure that we are known by our films and the food wherever we go in abroad.”
She is making the most of Hindi cinema, to give us an example, “When I did Dahaad with Sonakshi Sinha, the state I belong to is always in news, and we were exploring some similar conduits on the sets. The judiciary is very complicated over there! Because I have a political family background, I am bound to voice my opinions more often than others! So I was nothing like the character that I was playing in Dahaad. Instead, what I did was take a look at the sensibilities of the places we were shooting at, and a little bit of the culture. For other films, I can take inferences from my family. Such as my mother is the original feminist in our house! Her feminism is aggressive. I could only relate to the ruins of my character because of where she was coming from, since I come from a rural background too. Rural in the real sense! That was the blend I brought into this character, and most probably this is the only reason that I receive a lot of rustic roles like this. The familiarity of the mindset only comes from the district I belong to and you see me embracing it in each and every role of mine.”
