Chitrangda Singh has time and again proved to be a versatile actress. While fans are aware of her fine talent and her debut in Bollywood with Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, not many know about her first shot in it.
Taking a trip down the memory lane, Chitrangda revealed that she was nervous and perhaps too aware that she was shooting for the big screen for the first time.
“When I started, I was very nervous. The camera wasn’t intimidating, it was all those people in the room, dozens of them. As a model, I was used to having just two to three people on a shoot. A movie set is completely different. It took me a while to focus on what I was doing and not get distracted by what others were up to,” said Chitrangda.
Talking about her first-ever rendezvous with the camera for the silver screen, Chitrangda said, “My first shot was in a guest house. My character, Geeta Rao, is lying on the bed, waiting for her lover, Siddharth (played by Kay Kay), to come to her. There were no dialogues, I was just supposed to lie there and think about him. When I hear him coming through the window, I was supposed to get up and pull the curtains. That was it. The shot had to reflect Geeta’s excited anticipation as well as the guilt that came from cheating on her husband. I had to portray what she was thinking, without words.”
Interestingly in her maiden attempt at the first shot, Chitrangda chose to improvise as there were no dialogues and emotions had to be depicted through mere expressions and body language.
“Given that it was my first shot in my very first film, I was nervous and excited. Since I had no lines, I did some improvisations of my own. I played around with my bun, let it loose and moved around a bit… The shot was okayed in the first take. Everyone on the set, especially Sudhir, was nervous,” said the ‘Bazaar’ actress.
“Perhaps my director was wondering if I would be able to carry off this difficult scene since I had only done modelling before this film. I was told later that the reason I wasn’t given any dialogue because they did not want me to get worked up over my lines. It was like an initiation ceremony which ended with everybody clapping appreciatively. Sudhir doesn’t talk much, but the fact that he was ready to move on to the next shot meant that he was satisfied and that boosted my confidence.”
After Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, the talented actress went on to headlining many critically acclaimed movies like Bazaar, Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster and Sorry Bhai. Chitrangda is now all set for her upcoming movie ‘Bob Biswas’, by Sujoy Ghosh.
