When we spoke to actor Sheeba Chadha, she hadn’t seen her latest release Phone Bhoot (2022) and had snuck out time for us in the middle of a shoot. Phone Bhoot is Chadha’s sixth feature film release this year. Yet the actor will have you know she wishes she was more hardworking. “I’m lazy, so my practice is very lazy,” she told Film Companion. Her filmography for this year would beg to differ. Whether as a Tinder-savvy single mother in Doctor G (2022) or as a Bengali chudail (banshee) who is sick of the “freelance” life in Phone Bhoot, the actor has been a scene-stealer in practically every film. With her impeccable comic timing and empathetic portrayals of older women who are mostly sidelined by society, Chadha has established herself as one of those rare actors who doesn’t need a swathe of screen-time to make an impact. She can enrich a film with a single scene.
Here are edited excerpts from the interview:
What was acting in Phone Bhoot like?
Phone Bhoot is a crazy, mad film. I have not seen it yet, I’m going to see it the day after! I am very, very fond of the director. He’s the director of Mirzapur also. He’s just a special human being. His name is Gurmmeet Singh. I was very happy that he was directing it. I interacted very little with my co-stars, it’s such a small role in the film. Ishaan (Khattar) is just amazing, he’s a marvellous actor. Siddhant (Chaturvedi), of course, is lovely as well. I had only one or two scenes with Katrina (Kaif). There was a scene by the lake, and just to banter with her, it was really nice. I never shot with Jackie (Shroff) sir. For certain reasons, our dates didn’t match. I would have loved to be in a scene with him. Phone Bhoot is written by a dear friend, Ravi (Shankaran). It was great to be a part of this crazy ride. That’s about it.
This is your second release in the past 30 days. How did you prepare for Anubhuti Kashyap’s Doctor G, which released on October 14?
We took classes to give our accents a Bhopali touch!
Do you have a process as an actor?
It’s a little bit badtameez (shameless) that I genuinely don’t think I have a process. I keep saying this, I’m not a hardworking actor. I’m somebody who does not like too much hard work. And I don’t like to overthink… too much discussion about a role, I don’t enjoy that. If I have doubts, I’d like to have a discussion with the director but in general, I prefer to not get into the details. Actors have their bag of tricks. Unknowingly, we get used to working from that easy, safe space. To push that a little bit more…the other thing is to try and be as present as possible at that moment. It’s not easy to do all the time, to keep it close to the immediacy of that moment is something I would like to constantly work on.