Starting with Pune’s theatre scene and Marathi cinema, Radhika Apte is now on an interesting journey through different regional film industries and Bollywood. She shares her struggles and excitement with Renu Dhole

For an industry that is so obsessed with putting an actor’s identity and appeal into neatly-labelled boxes, Radhika Apte offers a serious conundrum. For starters, her prettiness is not the typical Bollywood assembly-line. But it’s her unconventional choices that truly make her stand out.

At her young age, she has offered a range truly wide — going from Pune’s vibrant experimental theatre scene, to mainstream South Indian movies, to regional films with veterans like Sumitra Bhave — Sunil Sukthankar and Amol Palekar, to an assortment of Bengali cinema, to films like Shor in the City and I Am that are stretching the definition of Bollywood. As much as we would like to see this as a sign of our cinema opening up its tradition-honouring boundaries, it has been a struggle for the attractive-eyed actress to establish her non-conforming individuality.

“It’s very difficult to break conventional definitions in the Hindi film industry. Everybody is very eager to typecast you. It’s hard to convince people after they’ve seen me in a sari-clad role, that I can carry off a modern, jeans-wearing character equally well,” avers Radhika. That, after working in the progressive-minded experimental theatre world and Marathi film industry, must have been an unsettling experience. “Yes, it’s been difficult. It’s a different ballgame altogether. The Hindi film industry is moving ahead slowly, but they still reject non-stars. Even if a filmmaker makes a good debut with new faces, the next film s/he will do will have stars. There is also huge competition. I’ve been here for some four years now, and I’m slowly understanding the ropes. But it’s difficult to make a mark on your own,” she says.

And yet, Radhika has got noticed, and not because a certain actor and his disapproving Big Producer sister tattled about her link-up with him on a famous talk show. Sensational rumours benefit lesser talents, and Radhika’s theatre-honed acting skills lend themselves to a diversity of filmmaking styles. “In the past two years, I have worked in two Hindi, two Bengali, two Marathi and one Tamil film. They’ve kept me busy,” she says. That also takes care of the speculation that she has packed off to London for personal reasons. “I am very much here. I divide my time between India and London, where I also learnt contemporary dance, but I haven’t moved to London for good, as some rumours had suggested.”
She is looking forward to quite a few interesting projects in the near future. “There is one Hindi project that I’m really kicked about. It’s an international collaboration, but I’m not allowed to talk about it at this stage,” she says. Also in the pipeline is Ketan Mehta’s Manjhi — The Mountain Man with the much-celebrated Nawazuddin Siddiqui. “It was fun working with him. A lot of acting is about how two actors react to each other, and Nawazuddin was great in responding to every small thing I did in front of the camera. And nothing was rehearsed. That made it interesting,” says Radhika.

A solid repertoire however doesn’t preclude mainstream, song and dance routine. “Nothing is off limits,” she assures. Cultivating “no image” is her credo and though she says you don’t always get to choose, she consciously tries doing varied roles. “I’m not working towards any particular reputation. An actor should reinvent herself with every role she does,” she believes.

So she moves on, juggling London and India, commercial Tamil hero-centric movies and Uney Purey Shahar Ek — Girish Karnad’s play adapted by well-known city-based theatre group Aasakta, playing a village woman on one set, and an urban girl on the next, owning the many images she portrays, yet claimed by none.