‘I don’t carry the burden of a flop’

Like everyone else in the film industry, actor Anushka Sharma feels a “sense of loss” when her film doesn’t do well, but unlike many, she doesn’t stress over it too much or for too long.

The 28-year-old, who completed eight years in Bollywood yesterday, says: “You feel a loss because of the emotional attachment to a film. You feel that setback, but that’s part of your growth as a performer and person. Having failures in life is important to understand where exactly you stand... I don’t want to carry the burden of a flop. I don’t fall into that trap.” The actor delivered hit films such as Sultan and Ae Dil Hai Mushkil this year, whereas her big project, Bombay Velvet, had bombed at the box office last year.

Anushka adds that she’s hard on herself when it comes to judging her own work. “I feel that’s a good thing as an actor that you do not feel satisfied. Whenever I go back and watch myself on screen, I find multiple reasons to redo that scene. That’s an occupational hazard that most actors face. You can never come to terms with it,” says the actor, who was in Delhi recently.

Sharing what director Imtiaz Ali told her on the sets of her film alongside Shah Rukh Khan — tentatively titled The Ring — Anushka says: “He said, ‘When an actor feels they’ve given a good shot, that’s not usually a good shot. A good shot is when an actor feels it’s not so good, that’s the one that people feel connected to.’ So you see, it’s a strange thing. It’s difficult to judge yourself. You don’t know honestly which way it has gone.”

I don’t fall into the trap of letting failures make me fearful or affect my decisions ANUSHKA SHARMA, ACTOR

PHOTO: ROHAN SHRESTHA