After winning Miss Universe in 1994, Sushmita Sen entered films. After giving some impressive performances in films like Filhaal, Samay, Main Hoon Na, Aankhen and Biwi No. 1 among others, the actor decided to take a break. It was only in 2020 that she decided to don the greasepaint again as she geared up for Aarya. Her comeback vehicle, a remake of Dutch drama series Penoza, became an instant success and even won an Emmy nomination.( as provided by Indian Express)

Sushmita recently sat down with indianexpress.com to speak about her latest project Taali. We asked her whether she imagined that Aarya would go on to break all records, especially because it was her galloping solo without a male star. Flashing her big smile, she shared that Aarya has been a manifestation of what she has been waiting for during the eight-year hiatus she took. She also revealed how she picked the show among two other Bafta-winning remakes offered to her by other platforms.

“I knew when I came back to work it would be aap ye yeh role kar lo, woh kar lo (you do this role and that part). And you need immense holding capacity to say no. Mann maar ke kehna ke yeh nahi karna (You have to say no keeping aside your misgivings). When I come back, it’s with a sense of responsibility, I want to headline a show, do an author-backed part. It has to be something solid. For that, you tell me, I will do three months of prep, do workshops, and unlearn. I wanted something like this and I got very lucky with Aarya. I approached three of the major platforms and they came back with amazing shows. With Aarya, it was a hands-down win. The script and then with Ram Madhvani coming in, it was a killer combination,” she shared. When asked to reveal what were the other two shows, the actor smiled to say that those were also remakes of Bafta-winning shows.

she felt underutilised on film sets, making her feel that she was wasting her time.

“As a woman, and I speak for myself at least, there’s a lot of mother guilt, parent guilt. I am on a set, and I am waiting endlessly for XYZ to arrive. But I am not really working. Then I have a 9-6 shift, which is dragging to another 9 with no fault of mine. In that situation, I was neither being a professional nor a mother. I am just wasting my time, and I didn’t want that. So I decided.. and it happened at the same time as Alisah was a baby. No Problem was my last film. At that point, I was not really enjoying anything, not learning, I wasn’t motivated to go to work,” the 47-year-old shared. She added that in her second inning, she is the first one to be on the set as there’s a ‘childlike excitement’: “It took a while but it’s back.”

While she was forced to assess her choices, her male co-stars be it Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan or even Sunny Deol continue to lead films. So be it facing mother’s guilt or not feeling productive, we wondered if she ever felt that things were unfair to gender biases in the industry. Sushmita replied, “I did feel that in the 90s. You need to understand that it was the time when it was at its peak. As actresses, you do one item song or one thing and wow, you have arrived. It’s about who is doing your costumes and how many breakdown scenes you have. That’s how your math used to be. Hats off to the actors who have been able to do that. I grew tired very quickly because I wasn’t growing. Also, I have no way of catering to egos. I have no problem being like this student of arts, cinema and life but it’s a big problem catering to egos. I can’t do that. So it was not a good idea for me either because I didn’t quite fit in.”

With a pause, Sushmita Sen added that when she stepped away and decided to come back, it was “not an attempt to be a hero of a series or film”. For her, it was about making a point that she won’t settle for less. “I wanted to say I want to do more. If you don’t have it, no issues, I will sit for another eighth years. But I will only work if it gives me that trill. And here I am, back as a student, enjoying what I am doing,” the actor said.

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