Bollywood actress Sushmita Sen talked about her decision to take a hiatus from movies after 2015 and how she spent a long time being passed over for opportunities.
Speaking with Sonal Kalra at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit 2023, Sushmita Sen looked back on her fruitful film career and explained why she decided to stop acting after 2015. The diva went on to say that she was sick of playing the same parts repeatedly and that she disliked being stereotyped for a small number of roles. She continued by stating her desire to study and act more like a student:
“The reason I left films was because I was tired of doing the same 201 expression to 2010. That was all I had to do. There was one good song and so on. I was looking for more. As I was getting older, I was not happy with that. I wanted more, I wanted to be a student again. I want them to teach me and tell me you suck at this job, let me teach you how it is really done.”
During the same conversation, Sushmita discussed her hugely successful comeback project, Arya, and disclosed that, similar to a beginner actor, she had to attend multiple workshops in order to prepare for it. Sushmita talked about how much she enjoyed the 21-day educational experience and said:
“That’s what Aarya did for me. I would have a 14-hour workshop, other actors would come and go and I would be the permanent fixture, just hungry to learn. I would go back home very late at night every day, for 21 days. And I loved it, loved that I was finally learning how to do my job.”
During a previous conversation with Bollywood Bubble, Sushmita Sen talked about her 1993 Miss India pageant victory and stated that she never thought she would win. She also emphasised that she could only succeed at the national level after realising the immense responsibility and notoriety that came with such a feat. Ultimately, she acknowledged that her brother’s and parents’ love served as both a motivator and a source of support during that period.
In the same interview, Sushmita Sen revealed one of her most difficult battles, when she was diagnosed with the auto-immune condition Addison’s disease in 2014. She described how it ended up hurting her career and how they prescribed a lot of steroids to treat it. She said:
“That phase of my life was the one that shook me considerably because I’m someone like, ‘It’s okay, everything will be better tomorrow.’ But when someone tells you that you’re steroid dependent for life and it has many side effects, you’re done and your career is done. The way you know your life to be is done because you cannot be out in public for very long. You don’t have a stress management system. The more stress you’ll take the more steroids you will have to take to accommodate for it. This shook me up.”