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Actors are always busy juggling between not one but many lives. As their characters on and off the screen constantly overlap, it sometimes becomes quite a challenge to get past the illusion that surrounds this profession. A case in point is Chitrangda Singh, whose last outing in Modern Love: Mumbai with Arshad Warsi won a lot of positive reviews for the simplicity of the story and her poignant portrayal of a character that felt painfully real. She shares how friends have come up to her and told her about the instant connection they felt with her character in Modern Love. She says, “My male friends started looking at things differently after watching Cutting Chai. That’s how a touching story like this can make you feel. And this is a special moment for me.” Adding to this, she continues, “It feels good when even though you do less, people remember your work. I think that’s the biggest compliment for an actor. It just keeps you going.”
Chitrangda marches to her own beat and she wouldn’t want it otherwise. Staying relevant is the key, being remembered is the dream. She’s as excited about a five-minute role as she is about a starring role. Her only criterion is that the project should offer her something challenging and allow her to offer something fresh to the audience.
She confides, “I’ll be honest. Bob Biswas is very much an Abhishek Bachchan film. It’s all about Bob Biswas. And Modern Love was even harder because it was a short film, but it just connected with the audience. I don’t think screen time makes that much of a difference. This is your presentation.
She has made a career of being selective and does not regret her decision. “I’m probably a little picky,” she commented. “But having said that, I think every artist is selective,” she commented. It’s a bit of a cliché to repeat what you’ve done before. Then you just keep getting versions of it. So yeah, I’m a bit selective and I try to do things that excite me.” Chitrangada likes to call a spade a spade. She doesn’t shy away from speaking her mind, even if it means courting controversy.
She would rather leave a project than compromise her principles. One such incident happened in the recent past and Chitrangada explains the reasons. She explains, “There are certain things that are within the parameters of being professional, and then there are certain things that go beyond that and become personal. When you are at work, something personal is bothering you. I do my job as an actor on set, but when the atmosphere is such that it becomes personally offensive, I think then I don’t even know if I as an actor or as a person take that call, but you have to take a call.”
Few know that the actress has more than one talent. She starts talking about the artistic side she has. She dabbles in charcoal and knife painting, a skill she inherited from her mother, who was a painter. And reveals that she is also a fashionista. What makes this chat even more interesting is how she really admires not just anyone but Sonam Kapoor Ahuja for her impeccable fashion sense. “Sonam just transforms into another character with every outfit she picks up. It’s just amazing how she experiments.
I think she understands fashion, the whole idea of it. Then the actress reveals her style mantra. She points out, “Anything effortless, anything that’s simple and elegant, whether it’s beauty, whether it’s a person or clothes. It’s something that stays with me. I think that’s my thing, where less is a little more.
We chat about the character he finds most fascinating when it comes to costume design. She excitedly mentions her character Maya from Inkaar. “I got involved in the intricacies of the costumes in this film and collaborated a lot with the costume designer. I was playing this very focused career woman and I wanted my costumes in the film to reflect that choice,” she regrets. In her upcoming film Gaslight, which also stars Vikrant Massey and Sara Ali Khan, the actress was once again very much in agreement with the costume department about what her character should wear. “My character in Gaslight is completely different from who I am in real life,” she says. “I was very excited about this as I knew it would give me a chance to experiment with clothes. Everything she wears will become part of the character and that scene. So I thought, well, here’s how we can make it tougher, or here’s how we can make it sexier or sensual or in your face and turn you off. I had fun. And they paid attention to my suggestions.
She sure had a blast with her Gaslight co-stars. She beams: “They are both very natural actors. Vikrant, we all know how good he is. And Sarah, I was so happy we were working together. She’s like the energy bunny. You have to literally contain her energy. But she is such a wonderful person. I had an amazing time working with them.”
Perhaps this is what makes her filmography so interesting, as her co-stars have always been so diverse, making the experience richer. Ask her to name one co-star she enjoys working with the most and she immediately names Akshay Kumar for all the fun he brings on set. She spoke warmly of him and his caring attitude on set to boost her co-star’s self-esteem. She fondly remembers the late Irrfan Khan, with whom she worked in Yeh Saali Zindagi. She shares, “I also learned a lot just by watching him on set. How he improvised, how he made sure you weren’t looking at anyone but him in the scene. You wouldn’t look at the other characters. It’s just an artist trick that I guess you learn with time. So Irrfan was amazing.”
As we near the end of this tete-e-tete, the actress reveals her vision of what would challenge her as an actor. Needless to say, like most talented entertainers, comedy is what she feels will really push her to test the craft she has created within herself. She says, “It’s easy to make people cry. Tragedy is always an easier sell. But it’s hard to make people laugh. You need great comic timing. We are sure that being the actor that he is, Chitrangda will effectively handle this as well. Filmmakers, take note.
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