Tag of playing mum on screen doesn’t go easily: Sneha Wagh

Sneha Wagh is always ready for challenges as an actor. But what hurts her is getting bracketed in the role of a mother. She has played a mother in TV shows such as Ek Veer Ki Ardaas...Veera, Sher E Punjab – Maharaja Ranjit Singh and Chandragupta Maurya, and she rues that only similar offers are coming her way.

“I’ve stopped reacting to it because even if I react, the tag of playing a mother on screen won’t go away. So why not just accept it and try to figure what I can do the best out of it? I avoid playing the role of a mother to older people. Some people approach me to essay the role of a 45 to 55-year-old, without knowing my age. It’s quite funny,” says the 32-yearold actor, who plays a young mother in her next and is okay with it.

But Sneha has quite a few clarifications to make on playing a mother. The actor says, “Ideally, I don’t want to play the role of a mother, but a lot of shows these days have young girls playing mothers on screen. If I’ve to play an older character I would like to do a mature love story or someone like Rani Laxmibai or something like Deepika Padukone’s character in Piku.”

And she feels stereotyping needs to stop. “The approach needs to change. If you see in films, Aamir Khan experiments with different roles in each film. That should also happen on TV. Our talent as actors should be explored and not compromised on,” she adds.

Like many of her colleagues in the television industry, Sneha too wants to take the plunge into filmdom. She says, “The lines are blurring between the two mediums. TV is where I belong and I’m quite happy about it. But films are also on my mind. And, TV actors do a lot of work regularly, so it is easy for them to work in a film because in a film, they have more time and limited work. But on TV, we have more work and limited time… our one show is equal to so many films,” she adds.

If I’ve to play an older character on screen, I’d like to do a mature love story or someone like Rani Laxmibai or something like Deepika Padukone’s character in Piku.

SNEHA WAGH ACTOR