IMAGE IS NOT EVERYTHING FOR DIVYA DUTTA

Always exploring new pastures helps the actor avoid getting typecast

Actor Divya Dutta might have won her first National Award only now, but the Badlapur and Blackmail actor has always been a darling of the critics. Dutta won in the Best Supporting Actress category for the film Irada, which also starred Arshad Warsi and Naseeruddin Shah, on May 5.

“I go by my instinct,” Dutta says about her approach to choosing the right script and roles. “The gut feeling that I have might have no logic. I either like the script or I don’t. If I do, I just go for it, and when I have to be a part of it, nothing stops me from giving my best to the character. For me, that is the biggest challenge I take,” she shares.

Dutta, with a body of work behind her that comprises starkly different roles — Milkha Singh’s sister in Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013), a sweeper in Delhi-6, a prison worker who has a casual fling with Varun Dhawan’s character in Badlapur (2015) — feels she cannot be typecast.

“The trick is to look different in front of the camera. I am not image-bound. No one can say that I have done something similar before and that I have a certain image. I am happy about it,” she says. Dutta, however, asserts that she doesn’t have a set approach or pattern for the choice of her roles.

“I did a crazy role in Blackmail. I just go for the director. I am a director’s child. If I see that the director is offering something that I have not done before, it makes me a lot more excited. I don’t see if it’s a socially relevant issue or if there is a message in it. I would rather work in all genres,” she signs off.

PHOTO: SARANG GUPTA/HT Divya Dutta has won the National Film Award in the Best Supporting Actress category for her film Irada