Tisca Chopra: Ducking stereotypes is not easy

BY SUGANDHA RAWAL

New Delhi, Nov 11  Tisca Chopra says the tendency to stereotype in Bollywood is not easy to duck, and going against the wave is a challenge.

“Ducking stereotypes is not easy, particularly in Bollywood, which is famous for stereotyping actors. In case you portray a role well, you’ll be offered the same role further. The same character will be offered to you with a different name in film after film,” Tisca told IANS.

“It hasn’t been easy to duck the stereotypes, I’ve had to stay without work to not repeat the characters. It has required me to have fortitude and patience but I’ve been fortunate that sooner or later something interesting has come to me. It has also pushed me in the direction of creating my content,” added the actress, who has produced the short film “Chutney”.

Tisca entered Bollywood with the commercial potboiler “Platform” in 1993, and worked in projects like “Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii”, “Karishma Kaa Karishma” and “Sau Jhooth Ek Sach”. The turning point was her role of a mother in “Taare Zameen Par”, and she went on to prove her talent in projects like “Firaaq”, “Qissa: The Tale Of A Lonely Ghost”, “24”, “Ghayal Once Again”, “Beecham House” and “Hostages”.

With the world embracing the new reality in the Covid-19 era, the actress feels OTT platforms are changing the landscape of content.

“OTT is one of the ways for people to consume content but community viewing & people visiting cinemas is not going to go away, it could evolve to smaller community theatre. Shooting for a short film, you need to be very highly prepared because it’s in miniature, you can’t let the quality drop. For films, you have time to prepare & get into the role. But in web series, you can get closer to your character,” she explained.

Tisca, however, points out Covid is a reality that won’t stay forever.

“I think we have ways to figure out how to survive. For example, what happened in 1918 was the Spanish flu. If we could survive that, we will survive this, too,” said the actress, who joined stars like Saif Ali Khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Manoj Bajpayee, Samantha Akkineni and Divya Dutta to discuss the future of the industry through Royal Stag Barrel Select Large Short Films Evening discussions, soon to be featured on the Zee network.

(Sugandha Rawal can be contacted at sugandha.r@ians.in)