An outsider in Bollywood, this actress gave a thousand auditions and faced rejections over her skin colour.
Outsiders don’t have it easy in Bollywood. Artistes who come from outside the filmy setup often have no godfathers or bigwigs to guide them. Amid the growing debate around nepotism in the industry, several such success stories have been highlighted. One of them involves this actress, who gave over a thousand auditions before she made it big and faced several rejections.
The actress who gave 1000 auditions
Sobhita Dhulipala began her career as a model in the early 2010s. The actress had no connections with the entertainment or fashion industry and her biggest claim to fame at that time was participation in the 2013 Miss India pageant, where she was a finalist. In a recent interview, Sobhita recalled how she must have given over a thousand interviews in that period and faced many rejections. “I was not connected to the film world. My only entry point was through auditions. And after my senior year, I was modelling for a bit. As a model, you also do auditions for ads...But I gave myself three years, and I auditioned. I must have done 1,000 auditions in my life," the actress said at an ABP event.
When Sobhita was rejected over skin colour
In an earlier interview, Sobhita had recalled being told she wasn’t fair enough or pretty enough for several ads or parts. "When you first start, everything is a battle. I'm not from the movies. I recall being told numerous times during my ad auditions that I am not 'gori' enough. I was told directly to my face that I am not pretty enough, similar to how you see in advertisements,” she had said.
Sobhita Dhulipala’s rise to success
In 2015, Sobhita made her film debut with Anurag Kashyap’s Raman Raghav 2.0, which was screened at the Cannes Film Festival and earned the actress a nomination for her performance too. She later made it big as the lead in the Emmy-nominated Amazon Prime Video show Made in Heaven. In 2022 and 2023, Sobhita appeared in a supporting role in Mani Ratnam’s two-part historical epic Ponniyin Selvan. The two films together earned over Rs 800 crore at the box office. This year, Sobhita is set to make her Hollywood debut when she will appear in Dev Patel’s directorial debut Monkey Man, a thriller set in India.
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