Actor Prashansa Sharma has lately been in the limelight for her powerful performances in two of the most popular shows on Indian OTT in recent times – Mirzapur and Dahaad. In Mirzapur, her character Radhiya is a fly on the wall, but has been much-discussed over the three seasons of the show. Rooted in theatre and an alumna of Prague Film School, Prashansa is currently an actor to keep an eye out for. I loved talking to her at length, learning about her background, her thoughts, ideas, and feelings, and her ever-growing relationship with her art.
How did acting happen?
(Pauses and chuckles) It’s a really funny story. I was four, I’m told, and I was watching this play that was being directed in the school I was in. I saw actors on stage doing things – I think it was something related to a jungle – I just started jumping below the stage. The director saw me, got very curious, and said, ‘Oh, let’s put her on stage and see if she can follow instructions.’ And I did. I think that was my first play. I don’t remember it, of course. But since then, I just loved being on stage. I grew up in Jhumri Telaiya, Jharkhand. My mother runs a school there, and she really wanted me to explore myself, explore my talents. So my parents sent me to Welham Girls’ School in Dehradun, and there I got to do a lot of plays. I was directed by Padamsee, by Ratna Patak Shah. And every time I was on stage, it just felt like I belonged. By the end of school, I pretty much knew that I wanted to do this. So, yeah, I think I just wanted to be an actor before I knew that there was something called being an actor, that there is a profession out there. I just knew that I loved being on stage. And I loved new characters. Slowly, it became a profession.
Growing up, were there people around you who were into this profession? Was anyone from your family interested in cinema?
So, my mother, very interestingly, is from a small place in Bihar called Sahibganj. And she has done plays by Vijay Tendulkar. She told me that once she did a very powerful play, and there was acid thrown at her on stage – her saree got burnt. So yes, I think I get some influence from her in terms of performance, stage, and acting. And my family is very into literature. My mother bought me books after books after books to read. Literature and her upbringing really added to what it means to become an artist.
So art, in general, was something that you grew up with, I would say.
Yes. I grew up with literature. I grew up with music. My mother’s family would just sit all night and sing songs and listen to music. That’s how we did things. Everybody was very, very inspired by art, literature, and music. I got introduced to great writers, authors, and poets.
You were into drama society in college.
Yeah, and I was heading it, in my third year of college.
I pretty much wanted to do theatre in college, but I also wanted to study. Interestingly, I chose philosophy as my subject, because that was just a course that really inspired me. I remember my parents asking me, what will you do after philosophy? And, of course, I didn’t want to tell them that I wanted to become an actress. So I said, oh, I can do anything. I can do something in the arts, I can do journalism, or I can even sit for civil services (laughs), but just let me study philosophy. It was a beautiful course, and I learned a lot. I still carry it within me as an actor today because I believe philosophy taught me how to think. How to look at characters, how to question things, how to look at the world, society – all of it.
Delhi has a very vibrant theatre scene. What were your days like? What would you do? What were the kinds of plays that you were doing?
I watched a lot of plays in Delhi. I’ve watched plays by Arvind Gaur, the Tadpole Repertory – they’re one of my favourites, they’re amazing. I worked with some Delhi theatre companies while I was in college. And just Delhi theatre, in itself, was so rich, you know. It really opened me up to explore that.
Also, the language was so rich. I am bilingual, and I have command over both my languages, Hindi and English. And I think being at Delhi University, being on the North Campus, and being around that group of people really made a difference in the work I’m doing today.
Going to all these places – Kamani (where I performed as well), IIC, Alliance Francaise. I would go watch anything and everything that was happening. I say this a lot – real learning really comes from doing. But it also comes from observing, and watching. And learning how to observe. It was a beautiful experience for me to be at Delhi University, being in a college from where such great artists have come out. Like Imtiaz Ali, for example. That exposure itself was very, very eye-opening.
How would you describe your current relationship with theatre?
I absolutely love theatre. I love being on stage. It’s so freeing, and it’s such an actor’s medium. You get to explore such dimensions – just the excitement of being able to play absolutely anything. When I went to drama school, I would play an old woman, and then in the very next play, I would become this completely different character – which you don’t really get to do in film, right? Because there is so much about how I look, or the age. But in theatre, if you, as an actor, can perform, you can do it. My last play was with Patchworks Ensemble where I played a drag queen. Pooja Sarup, who is a great actor, and Sheena Khalid – they run Patchworks Ensemble. I did a play called The Gentleman’s Club, and it was so much fun.
There’s such great work happening. The last play I saw was… of the Dastaan group. They are beautiful, reviving this almost-lost art. There were just two people sitting on stage, and they were reading a story. They were wearing white kurta pyjamas, and just had two silver bowls on the sides. Nothing else. I was mesmerized by how two good storytellers are enough to tell a story. You don’t need much. Theatre is, and will always be, very close to my heart. It’s my roots.
I can see the happiness and the glow on your face when you talk about theatre! So, the decision to start thinking about films, and to go to a film school as well – Prague Film School. This was right after Hindu College?
I went to The Drama School after Hindu College, with a scholarship. I got to explore a lot of different theatre forms there, and when I did realism, something changed inside me. There are things that I had to open up and find out about myself. Sometimes, I didn’t want to. We don’t want to open those parts. There were parts that I didn’t know about myself, which I got to see through this form. And it just blew my mind. I thought, maybe this is the form that I want to do. It got me to understand that film is very real. And the kind of acting is so internal. It changed me as a person. And I got very excited to explore it. Coming from a family that is all about education, I wanted to study acting. That was when I went to Prague Film School. I had a beautiful experience there.
I think, in my batch, I did one of the most number of short films and projects. I got nominated for the Best Actor Award there. The school wanted me to stay back and study, but I was really keen on returning to this country and working.
But it was a great experience that taught me a lot. I had a great teacher called Brian Caspe. I remember I was struggling with vulnerability. And I was like… What is this vulnerability? What is vulnerability? I’m vulnerable. I can cry. My teacher was like… no! (laughs) You have to let go. You have to learn to depend on people. You have to allow people to let you down. You have to… give that agency. I can talk about Stanislavski and throw these big words, but what I learned is… How to be really vulnerable. In life. And now the way I live is with a lot of vulnerability. Which is amazing. And it sucks as well. But I can’t live any other way. And I often think about how beautiful my art form is how it changed me as a person. It changed the way I look at the world, and the way I look at myself. It taught me to break down all the walls that we constantly carry. I don’t know why people look at acting so externally, because it is so internal. It is almost like a – (pauses) I hate using this word – a spiritual journey you go on with yourself. Because you have to notice so many things inside. There is so much light and darkness. And there is so much that we carry within ourselves. So much from the past, so many traumas, so many memories that we’ve just stored inside, and acting allowed me to bring that out.
It also trained me to work with the industry. Understanding what works, what doesn’t work. Finding out what my process is.
Since you talked about vulnerability, I am curious to ask this. When you are playing so many different characters as an actor, you are becoming someone else altogether, and you are becoming vulnerable as a different person. So are you drawing from the character’s history? Or are you drawing from your own history?
(Long pause) I feel like every actor is a whole acting school in itself. Because we are all different people, we work very differently. We have our own past, and our own ways of doing things.
What works for me is that I first try to find the similarities between the character and me. All that I can understand – and I mean really understand, in my body. Not intellectually. Intellectually I can understand almost anything. For example – and I give this example a lot – Sindoora in Dahaad. She was such a challenging character. And I realised that when I got the audition script, my first instinct had been to judge her. I judged her. And even though intellectually I could understand why she was doing what she was doing, in my body, I would feel, why can’t she just say it? It’s not her fault. But that was me as Prashansa. An empowered, educated feminist who thinks this way. I couldn’t see it from her perspective. And then, I started looking at our similarities and dissimilarities. She is a mother. I am not a mother – I mean, I have two cats, and I call myself a mother (laughs). She is married. She lives in a very patriarchal society. The family that she comes from. All of that. So once I started understanding that, only then I understood why suicide was a choice for her.
I feel like I try to find one window of similarity, and go into it. And the more I do so, the whole world of the character changes. Sindoora lives in a very patriarchal world. I live in a very patriarchal, judgmental world. Radhiya has been through a lot of abuse. Women have been through a lot of abuse. That’s something I can connect with.
When I played Radhiya, on set, there were times when I was on high alert if somebody touched me. My body had become so sensitive to touch. When I was playing Sindoora, I just had to shut off completely from people. I didn’t want to talk to people. My co-actors would say, why aren’t you with us? But I simply wouldn’t be able to. There is something that a character brings in, and that is also beautiful to see.
Lovely. That’s very insightful. I think a lot of actors will also find this helpful when they read it. I think you have been quietly establishing your presence in the industry. And now, when someone sees you, I think the first thing that anyone thinks of is that ‘She’s a good actor.’ You’re good at what you’re doing. However, as outsiders, we hear a lot about the industry not being very open and that it is probably difficult to navigate. So how has your journey been, as a so-called ‘outsider’?
I have two answers. Firstly, any industry is difficult to navigate, when you don’t know someone. I hear from my friends in other professions, in corporate jobs, who are going through their own struggles. So I feel that, because we are interviewed, we have become the face of it. Secondly, yes. It is difficult as a newcomer, as somebody who doesn’t know anyone in this city. But I was blessed with good casting directors – Anmol, Abhishek – who believed in me. I also feel that the industry is changing in that way. They will try their best to push you when they recognize good talent. As an actor, all I can do is act well and give good auditions. People have also been exposed to a lot of content. They notice characters playing smaller roles – Radhiya for example. So I feel that the audience has also come a long way, and we trust them a little more. And hopefully, people will make movies with good actors and good talent, which is not about how many followers you have or how you look. And I think this is a big, big change in the way we will look at films and I am very hopeful that good storytelling will be of primary importance.
Right now where you are, after having done Dahaad and Mirzapur, how do you look at your film school years or your drama school years or, you know, studying philosophy? Do you think that makes you any different or do you perceive things differently from your co-actors? Does it affect your work?
I don’t know how other actors perceive it because I don’t know, but I can tell you how I do. Philosophy taught me how to think. Vedanta Paribhasha or Greek Philosophy – there was so much reading that really opened up my mind. It opened up how I look at the world, and as an actor, it’s so much about what you observe, your perspective, your lens – and all our lenses are so damaged with our experiences of the past, with our privileges. Drama school, of course, opened me up in so many different ways, and there are great actors who have come out of this school because of it. I had a great mentor there, who is still my mentor, Jehan Maneckshaw who was so supportive and amazing. Then I went to film school – these places have taught me a lot of techniques. You know, I found my real voice in an acting class. I realized that I was always talking a pitch higher, and when I found my real voice it was so enlightening!
Oh God, when you said voice, I thought you meant it philosophically, like an inner voice, but you mean your actual voice!
Yes yes, my actual voice. You can read and understand all the intellectual books but to really look at the world from a place of vulnerability is what my education has been about. And acting is so much about looking at who I am within, what biases I carry, and how I can change society. I feel that Radhiya is one of the most powerful characters in Mirzapur because she comes from nothing, and then you look at her dreams and aspirations. I don’t think I would’ve had this perspective and this understanding if I wasn’t where I was. Acting is so much about looking. Looking at you, I am so curious about your life right now! That has helped me a lot. I am very close to nature, so that helps me in many ways. And I am reading all the time. Books are a way to understand the world better.
What do you do when you’re not acting?
I climb mountains (laughs)! I spend a lot of time with nature, I love forests. I feel well-connected with myself as well as with the rest of the world. I love to read, I love poetry. I like to be in places where people don’t know me as an actor, so they can get to know me as a person. There’s a human-to-human connection. And I’ve seen the world be so kind, so loving, so giving, and so wonderful.
One last question. When you were talking about your years of getting interested in films, what kinds of films were you watching then, and how much cinema do you watch now?
I watch a lot of cinema. Growing up, I watched a lot of Satyajit Ray and a lot of great Indian cinema. Shabana Azmi, Rekha, Smita Patil, Naseer Saab – there are such great actors in this country. At the same time, I saw a lot of world cinema. Wong Kar Wai is one of my favourite filmmakers. I was very influenced by all of that. I was also observing the kind of acting they were doing – very different from theatre. I’d think, ‘Arre, yeh toh kuch bhi nahin kar raha hai! (They are doing nothing!) How is this happening?’ Irrfan is probably the God of that. Tabu, Tilottama – and Rasika also does that so well. It’s so beautiful to look at them. In the West, of course, there’s Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, and Kate Winslet as well. I wanted to act like them, and I wanted to learn how to do that.
