Sobhita Dhulipala's journey: From Vizag to Bollywood

At 23, Sobhita Dhulipala has not only made her name as a model, but has also starred in the Anurag Kashyap film Raman Raghav 2.0 opposite Nawazuddin Siddiqui, for which she was nominated in the Critics’ Choice Best Performance category at Cannes.

The Vizag girl says, “I always wanted to become an actress, but I still can’t believe all that happened in the past few months.” From turning up for an audition without knowing the cast or crew, to getting a call within 45 minutes and then being told that the director of the film had “loved her audition”, Sobhita’s past few months have just whizzed by.

The former Miss India runner-up plays Simi, the girlfriend of Raman (played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui), who is a serial killer. “The schedule for the film was hectic. We shot within 21 days and the shoots sometimes lasted for 16 hours. So we never really laughed and bonded on the sets. All our characters had shades of grey and it was difficult to get out of it. The cast thus never got the time to play pranks and joke around,” she says.

“Since we played such intense characters, I found it difficult to get back to my normal life. During the 21 days of the shoot, I was quite aloof with my family and friends and even after the shoot was done, for two weeks I couldn’t go out and mingle,” she says.

The nomination at Cannes too came as a surprise for Sobhita who didn’t know about it until Anurag brought it up. “For a newcomer, the nomination itself is a huge honour,” she says.

For Sobhita, who now shuffles between Mumbai and Vizag, nothing has changed back home. “I don’t think I have new-found fame. Instead I have a new identity, but back home nothing has changed.”

Currently, Sobhita is busy looking at scripts for upcoming projects. However, a movie in the Telugu film industry seems unlikely as of now. She says, “I haven’t been approached by anyone from Tollywood. As of now, I plan to concentrate on Hindi film projects.”