Sonakshi Sinha: There have been commercial failures, but who hasn't that happened to?

Radhika Bhirani

rbhirani@gmail.com

Here's a 'dabangg' talent waiting to explode in the Hindi film world. For why I say "waiting to explode", please watch Vikramaditya Motwane's painterly style, period-set Lootera (2013).

It's that rare Hindi film where silence and eyes speak louder than words and actions, brought alive with such simplicity and subtlety by Sonakshi Sinha, that you do, for a moment, ponder if she's the same actor who started her Bollywood career 10 years ago as the effervescent Rajjo to Salman Khan's 'chulbula' Chulbul Pandey in an out-and-out commercial masala affair as Dabangg.

"I think Lootera was a film ahead of its time, and I love myself in that space as well. I really think it was pure magic on screen. If you ask why you don't see me in those kind of roles more often, it is because those kind of roles are just not easy to come by. After Lootera, that kind of film, that kind of role... I don't think I have come across it (again) and I am yearning to do it again because there was something magical about it," Sonakshi told me in an interview earlier this year.

She finds herself "at a loss of words" to describe what it was, but knows within her heart that "there was something about it which worked very well" for her, and adds, "Everything came together so beautifully and that's why it became what it did. And that's why today when I walk into a room, and meet someone new, the first film they tell me about is, Lootera... They say, 'We loved you in Lootera'. So I hope that filmmakers read this interview and get me something like Lootera very, very soon."

Are writers, directors and producers listening? We hope as much!

SONAKSHI SINHA'S LOCKDOWN DIARIES

Sonakshi has turned 33 years old today. This year also marks 10 years since she stepped into the industry, as a 'star kid' who lost 30 kgs before entering Bollywood, and under a heightened media scrutiny of her looks, her work, her dressing, her IQ (remember Kaun Banega Crorepati and the Ramayana gaffe?!?) et al. But none of it has, thankfully, weighed her down.

"The good thing is that it doesn't feel like 10 years," she says candidly as she looks back at her maiden decade in Bollywood. Surfing the success-and-failure waves ever since with over 20 films, the actor admits making her own "mistakes" and "learning" from them.

'I think I've worked so much that I don't even know where time flew by. But it has been a great journey. I wouldn't have changed anything, or had anything any other way because I have learnt so much and met some amazing people, I've been in some wonderful films. I've made my own mistakes, I've learnt from them, and I feel who I am as a person is all because of how things happened to me in the last 10 years. I love what I do, which is why I am still doing it with full force. Today, every film and project that I start, I still think I am going to do my first film, and that's what has got me so far. So I think it has been a beautiful journey and I hope that it goes on for 10, 20, 30 more years," the actor says in one breath.

In the early years of her career, it would perhaps be safe to say that Sonakshi was sort of 'trapped' in the image of the lead actor's romantic interest. To cite as examples, there are action entertainers such as Rowdy Rathore, Son of Sardaar, Dabangg 2 and Holiday: A Soldier Is Never Off Duty. It was post 2015 that Sonakshi started taking on roles with meat for her to bite in.

For one, there was Akira, where her performance had led critic Meena Iyer to describe Sonakshi as "Khan, Kumar and Kapoor rolled into one". And there was Noor, which though didn't fare well commercially, elicited praise for her. Critic Anna MM Vetticad wrote, "Sonakshi's natural performance as Noor once again raises the question: why does she waste herself primarily on Akshay Kumar starrers and the like that demean women and relegate her to being no more than a pout and large eyes and an attractive profile?"

As for me, I'm convinced with what Sonakshi told me: "My best is yet to come".

She doesn't dismiss the box office failures she has seen throughout her career. Rather, she takes them in her stride.

"Yes, of course. Along with the hits, there have been commercial failures as well. But who hasn't that happened to? I mean, sometimes I feel like (laughs) I am the first one this has happened to, and that's why I am asked this question. But that's a part of life. Whether you are in any profession -- it happens to a businessman and it happens in any career you take. I think how you deal with it is to completely keep a positive outlook. For me, the failures have also taught me something -- they have taught me what not to do, how to move forward... And that's how I deal with it," she told me.

Acknowledging the "real success" that she has tasted too, she recounts what her parents, Shatrughan Sinha and Poonam Sinha, have always taught her: "To treat success and failure the same way".

"So, when a film is a success, I won't go shouting from rooftops that my film is a success, and when it doesn't do well, I won't sit and sulk in a corner. I have already moved on and put all my energy into what I am doing next and I hope, wish and pray that that turns out to be good for me. So, it's all about keeping a positive outlook," she says on a note that can be inspiring to several people who tend to lose focus by brooding over failures.

Next up, Sonakshi will be seen continuing on her journey to diversify -- both in terms of performance and medium. She is set to join the digital streaming platform world with an Amazon Prime Video series, directed by Reema Kagti.

"I think it is a great role for me, and it has been a while since something so challenging has come by. It is very new and refreshing, it's a great story, and I am really happy to be a part of a project like this with such talented actors as well. There's Gulshan Devaiah, Vijay Varma, and Reema is directing it. I am working with her for the first time, it's very exciting."

On the film front, whenever normalcy in theatres resumes post the lockdown, she will be seen in Bhuj: The Pride of India. "This my first biopic. It's a beautiful and amazing true story about the war in 1971, and I am playing the role of Sunderben Jetha Madharpariya, who kind of got 300 women from a village and built a runway overnight so that an Indian Air Force plane could land on it... It's a wonderful film and again something very new, nothing like I have done before."

And on that note, wishing Sonakshi a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY, and cheers to exploring and exploding new horizons!