Rajshri Deshpande: When I was running an advertising company, I could sell almost anything, now I can’t sell myself as an actor

Despite years of experience in theatre, movies and web series, actor Rajshri Deshpande still have to tell people what all work she has done and moreover, she also gets stereotyped for her looks.

“When I started I was told that I’m too fair to play a village girl and then I did Angry Indian Godesses (2015) that won international honours. Then I started getting parts of rural characters, housemaids, Marathi characters. Now they approach me for all kind of bold roles after Sacred Games. I feel directors need to broaden their perspective, imagination and see us in different roles,” she says.

Deshpande feels people are mostly stuck in the commercial space. “Making money is important but this is also about the art. Character actors like us are required to add that required seriousness to a film but our screen time is limited. Sometimes we don’t get to do auditions till that ‘certain’ type of character is required. While an insider would get to meet directors and producers easily, I won’t even get an appointment,” adds the actor known for projects such as Sexy Durga (2017), Manto (2018) and Sacred Games (2018).

Blaming her poor PR skills too, she elaborates, “I hardly attend parties or go out. I would also like to do an out and out commercial film but then I’m bad at promoting myself. When I was running an advertising company, I could sell almost anything, now I can’t sell myself as an actor. I can only do my work.”

Hoping that things will change, Deshpande says that OTT space has been liberating. She also stresses on the importance of finding a balance.

“The system will take time to change. We need to constantly hustle it out,” she says, adding that it’s important “to find a balance” like she found with her humanitarian work to maintain sanity. She runs her NGO and has been working towards water and employment issues in villages, building a school, etc.

So isn’t earning equally important to do such things? The actor admits she tries to take up as much work as possible but then work also needs to happen.

“I get opportunities mostly in parallel and independent cinema which doesn’t pay much and has been affected by the pandemic. Three of my projects are stuck. Good thing is that I believe in simple living. Many think I’m a celebrity so getting money to build a school is easy, but that’s not the case. I’ve been seeking help for over a year,” she ends.

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Author tweets @Shreya_MJ