‘The award was worth my patience’

Neha, who received the Best Supporting Actor award for her performance in Tumhari Sulu, talks about her longawaited win

Actor Neha Dhupia is full of gratitude. Not just because she has had her hands full throughout this year with a TV show, a radio show, live events, and a successful film but also because she got applauded for her hard work.

She recently bagged the Best Supporting Actor award for her performance in Tumhari Sulu that also starred actor Vidya Balan. “I’ve been in and around [the industry] for long, and I’ve always been on the stage [presenting and] giving away awards. But I’ve never been on the stage to receive one. So, it feels really amazing. I keep looking at it. Also, the night when I got the award, I kept it on my bed and slept,” shares Neha, who says that she wouldn’t like to look at all of this as a great year end, but as a new beginning.

Asked if the wait was worth it, she says, “I don’t think that the wait was worth 15 years... but yes, I definitely slowed down on the number of films that I was doing, and lots of questions were asked [because of this decision]. It was certainly worth my patience because I was choosing films that were content-driven.”

This year, Neha was also seen in Hindi Medium and Qarib Qarib Singlle, and both the films garnered great response at the box office, and were lauded by fans as well as critics. Did the fact that she won an award at a much later stage in her career, anyhow help her in instilling faith in one’s talent and of course, the industry? “It has instilled my faith in the fact that ‘it’s still not over for me’. I’ve always been somebody who has been standing on the sidelines. But I’ve had immense faith in myself, and [had] the belief that someone would one day believe in me,” shares an emotional Neha.