Richa Chadha opens up about her role in Heeramandi and the urge to stay away from conventional heroine roles in Bollywood
Richa Chadha has spent over a decade in the film industry. Since her debut with Oye Lucky Lucky Oye to her breakthrough with Gangs of Wasseypur or recent successes in the Fukrey films, the actress has always strived to be unconventional in her choices. Richa has hardly ever played the conventional commercial Bollywood heroine even though she has been the female lead in many of her films. Talking to DNA about her new series Heeramandi and the changing conventions of films in India, Richa talks the growing stature of heroines and her own ambitions.
Heeramandi, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s first OTT venture, is set in the Lahore of 1940s. It stars six women in the main roles, doing away with the concept of ‘lead actress’ and ‘supporting actress’, a trend that Bollywood is increasingly adopting. Talking about it, Richa says, “I just feel this kind of bracketing will change, particularly if we are going the international way. And also, in a conventional setup in the past, say in the 90s, what used to be the role of the heroine was very limiting in scope in the commercial setup, at least. It was always the same – they would come in for the love story, be the eye candy, be there for the songs, and just show up towards the end after the dishoom dishoom was over.”
The actress says that she never wanted to do those types of conventional roles when she entered Bollywood. “When I came into the industry, it was never my ambition to be that person,” she says.
The reason, Richa says, is that if you fit in that slot, you are easily replaceable, and that is something heroines face even today. “Narratively, you are replaceable,” she argues, adding, “That is also the reason why narratives render them replaceable, because the premium is on newness, on who is a new face, or who is somebody who can make an ageing superstar look younger.”
Richa says this need to do different things was one of the reasons she agreed to play the tragic Lajjo in Heeramandi. “In terms of narrative, my whole laalach (greed) in doing this show was because Lajjo is very different from anything that I have done, and she leaves you gutted. Her character brings about a transformation in the women of the kotha,” she says.
Heeramandi, which also stars Manisha Koirala, Sonakshi Sinha, Aditi Rao Hydari, Sharmin Sehgal, and Sanjeeda Sheikh, is currently streaming on Netflix.
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 "Richa Chadha (Image: Instagram)")
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