Anushka Sharma on why she doesn’t believe in awards

Anushka Sharma is convincing even without a script. She speaks so fast, and with such earnestness, that in two hours I feel like I know her.

We’re in the living room of her Andheri penthouse, sitting on a black sectional sofa strewn with quirky cushions, beneath a New York-style exposed brick wall. On the wall above our heads is a massive abstract photo frame, and in my vision is Sharma, curled up in skinny jeans and a black tank, with the backdrop of the sun setting on Versova beach. “I don’t understand art, so I don’t have any paintings. For me, that would be a waste of money. Photographs are more real for me, so you’ll find pictures and posters rendered on different surfaces across the house,” she says.

“Waste of money” is not a phrase many actors use. For Sharma, this penny-wise attitude comes from her upbringing as an Army kid, something that has calcified her public image of the terminally honest girl-next-door—the anti-diva in Bollywood who has a hearty laugh and says what she feels like saying.

Today, Sharma is the big-ticket actor who still lives with her family and wouldn’t have it any other way; her 20th-floor apartment is next to ones belonging to her brother and parents. “It’s a good setup. While I’m living with my parents, I still have my apartment. We are a close-knit family, so staying together is the best feeling,” she says.

It’s perfect given her idea of unwinding: “When I’m not shooting, I love spending time at home—talking to my parents, playing with my dog (a frisky Labrador named Dude) and just watching shows like Brain Games with my dad.”

Sharma calls her older brother, Karnesh, her “best friend” in the industry. In 2014, their lack of Bollywood blood didn’t stop the siblings from launching a production house together. “We make a good team. We share the same tastes and are always on the same page,” she says.

Titled Clean Slate Films, the production house was launched to showcase content-led material by newer talents. “It’s a collaborative effort. She handles the creative side of it and I look after the logistics,” says Karnesh, who gave up a job in the merchant navy to join the movie business. “The only way we are different is that she talks too fast and I’m a slow thinker,” he jokes.

LEADING LADY
That Sharma is one of the youngest actresses in the production business hints at her path-breaker tendencies—she’s ready to write her own rules (and scripts) and live by them. “People asked why I was doing it in the prime of my career. But we only say this about actresses because we assume that they need to do it to find work towards the end of their careers. I’m not into production to make films that glorify me or to replicate films that have worked at the box office; I’m doing it because I want to create quality cinema,” she argues.

She doesn’t seek validation in awards either. Despite portraying strong leads in films, Sharma, so far, has only won awards for supporting roles. “I genuinely don’t believe in awards. It’s rewarding enough that a film like NH10 (2015) got the response that it did, and that because of its success I’m now producing a film with Fox Star Studios, which is funny, romantic and poles apart from NH10,” she says about Phillauri, which stars Life Of Pi actor Suraj Sharma and Punjabi actor Diljit Dosanjh alongside her.

Sharma’s film roles amply demonstrate her range—a city girl working at an MNC (NH10), a glamorous jazz singer (Bombay Velvet), and a righteous scribe (PK), among others. “My characters are wildly different, but they have one thing in common—most of them are that of an independent, successful, working girl,” she says, “I pick a film that has a strong plot. I’d never pick one to piggyback on a big actor or director’s name.” Her decision to turn producer with NH10, an unconventional, dark action-thriller with a strong female lead, speaks volumes about her intrepid nature. “I’m not a product of how people want to see me and how I should be or ought to be. I am what I am. I’ve never done anything just because it has worked. I love taking risks and following my conviction,” she says.

You can’t blame her.

Her life is the typical Bollywood tale we usually see in movies. And the way it’s panned out seems so unreal that sometimes even she can’t believe she’s living it. “If you push me back 10 years and told me all this would happen to you, I would have said, ‘Shut up! Are you crazy? It’s impossible!’”

Read the whole interview in Vogue India’s May 2016 issue that hits stands on May 2, 2016.

Photographed by Errikos Andreou; Styled by Anaita Shroff Adajania; Hair: Gabriel Georgiou/Anima Creative Management; Make-up: Rosario Belmonte/Anima Creative Management; Production: Temple Road Productions, Divya Jagwani; Props: Bindiya and Narii; Photographer’s agency: DEU Creative Management; Assistant stylists: Priyanka Kapadio, Fabio Immediato; Photographer’s assistant: Sajna Sivan; Production assistants: Saakshi Kaushik, Aishwarya Reddy; Location courtesy: Amateur Riders Club, Mahalaxmi, Mumbai

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