SOHUM SHAH:
AS AN ACTOR, YOU ARE ONLY ACCOUNTABLE FOR YOURSELF
Many people used to say “Apne dukaan pe koi ladki rakhi hui hai, kaam
karne ke liye,” when Sohum Shah used to work with his father at the young age of 15-16, in the small town of Sri Ganganagar in Rajasthan.
“My father was a commodities broker and I started working with him early on. This was the precellphone era; I used to take down messages for him on the landline.
“I had a shrill voice, and people assumed I was a girl,” says the 34-year-old actor.
Shah has a come a long way from his “shrill voice” days, as his rich, deep and grounded voice now doesn’t fail to make a mark.
His next film, Simran, opposite Kangana Ranaut, is set to release on September 15.
“I play Sameer, the love interest of Kangana. I am a very calm and meticulous guy, coming from a Gujarati family.
“I am the exact opposite of Kangana, who is highly energetic and plays a rebel of sorts in the film,” says Shah. He was offered the role by Hansal Mehta after the latter saw him in Ship of Theseus (SoT).
The 2013 film was his breakthrough role that won critical acclaim the world over, and bagged a National Award for the Best Feature Film that year.
Not many people know that Shah, who plays stockbroker Navin Parnami in the film, also produced SoT.
“I had auditioned for Anand (Gandhi) and he liked me for the role. But we were not getting any backers for the film. That’s when I decided to come on board as producer,” says Shah.
Shah made his Bollywood debut as the titular character in the 2009 film, Baabarr, which largely went unnoticed. But it was Shah’s realistic portrayal of a stockbroker on a quest to trace the benefactor of a donated organ in SoT that brought him recognition. Consequently, Honey Trehan cast him in the crime drama, Talvar, as a CBI officer.
“It was all Trehan’s vision. In
SoT, I was very much playing the character I am in real life — in terms of clothes and body language.
“But I had to do a lot of homework to play the role of a CBI officer in Talvar, who is slick, controlled and represents authority,” he adds.”