Tillotama Shome is experiencing reverse migration. After making her debut with Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding in 2001, she went to New York to do a master’s program in educational theatre at New York University, where one of her assignments included teaching drama to high level convicts in a US prison. She somehow gravitated towards international projects, playing Deepa in Shadows of Time (2004), directed by Florian Gallenberger. She played a nun in the Australian film The Waiting City (2009) by Claire McCarthy. Italo Spinelli’s Gangor (2010), based on Mahashweta Devi’s novel, had her play a social worker. She also played an important character in The Letters (2014), directed by William Riead, which was about the life of Mother Teresa. Sir (2018), made the Indian audience take notice of her once more. She played a maid who has feelings for her employer but is acutely aware of the class difference which exists between them. Currently, she’s in the news for playing a high class woman who spies on her maid having sex in The Mirror, directed by Konkona Sen Sharma. She also plays a pregnant spy in the hit series, The Night Manager. Excerpts from an in depth interview with the reticent actress, who believes in making her work speak for herself.
Not many people get to boast about a debut with a Mira Nair film.
I was twenty and cutting through a thorny pathway to a higher but unaffordable education in drama therapy outside of India. My personal encounter with acting on stage in Lady Shri Ram College under the warmth of seniors like Anurupa Roy had freed me of my stammer. Scrounging money to apply to foreign universities, applying for scholarships to fund my education and hitting many dead ends – the Monsoon Wedding came to me during this tumultuous time. For me, the film was not just a cinematic debut but also a gateway to the world outside. Mira Nair tended to my desire to see the world. The success of the film was overwhelming and I decided to use this portal that had opened up to further my academic dreams. But a debut like this was perfect for the dreamer in me and I am ever so grateful for it.
Not many people know about your international projects; tell us about those differences in the filmmaking process.
I did not perceive any such difference in filmmaking. The difference, if any, was in the complicated co-production contracts and the time it took to mount such films. I lived in India but got no calls from directors here. I survived on the occasional international co-productions that were shot in India and needed Indian actors. I took what I got and ran with it. I was lucky if I did a film every two-three years. It gave me the time to obsess about it. Time was a good friend and I had a lot of it.
Did you expect your film, Sir, to get such an overwhelming response?
I am so thankful to Rohena Gera for trusting me with Ratna. The film gave me so much, beyond anything that I could have imagined. I rarely expect anything from the work I do after I have finished shooting it. Perhaps it’s a coping mechanism I had to cultivate because the kind of films I made barely got any distribution in India. I was not part of the OTT wave and when Sir reached so many homes, I was unable to understand the maths of it all. It felt like some kind of glitch in the matrix. Winning awards for the film and especially the Filmfare did not feel like an award for the film as much as it did for just not giving up on acting. It was also a much-needed distraction for my family, which was battling my mother’s cancer. Everything that followed work-wise was significant but no longer the centre of my universe.
Coincidentally, The Mirror from Lust Stories and Sir both talk about class differences.
Both films do investigate the intersection of class and desire, but in vastly different ways. I feel fortunate to have done both. Both made my body remember and feel different things. My relationship with my body is undergoing such dramatic changes as I get older and the films have become a personal register of that change.
Tell us about your reaction to The Mirror from Lust Stories 2.
I was just delighted to work with Konkona. I knew her story would interest me, but the hook that drew me in was the style. It was unusual; the tone of the film was so unfamiliar, and I was sucked in by the intrigue. I was just taking in the dense negotiation in each sentence of that film, written so powerfully by Konkona and Pooja Tolani.
Konkona has said you have a knack for comedy, like we see in the first scene in The Mirror.
I had so much fun doing that scene. It was the first scene I shot for the film. I would love to explore comedy. I don’t know if one can have a knack for something that one has explored so little, but I am definitely happy to try it again and again, even if I fail.
How do you perceive the notions of love and lust in today’s world?
Love and lust are intimate feelings that a younger me associated with romance, but now they are a far wider bracket that holds together the personal, professional, political, emotional, intellectual, sexual, environmental, asexual, familial, etc. The ability to love and lust waxes and wanes, but an important driver of it for me is the space to have dialogue and question boundaries.
You’ve always been this niche actor; are you happy with the recognition you’ve received?
I don’t think one can set out to be a niche actor. I mean, what would that aspiration even look like? I just wanted to be a working actor who could be financially independent and creatively challenged. I don’t want to be framed in some niche or be a flagbearer of anything. I need fluidity and change. I am happy, but not because of the recognition I think I have received, but because of the number of opportunities I have received. The diversity of storytellers who invited me to the room despite my not being a part of any alumni group has been so high.
The Night Manager has managed to live up to expectations with Season 2, considering it’s an adaptation of an English series. Were there any initial inhibitions?
I did not see the original because I did not want to be influenced by Olivia Coleman’s choices. It’s hard to forget the shape of things when she does something. So I was free from all adaptation anxieties. I just had to focus on bringing Lipika to life. Both Sandeep and Priyanka were incredibly open and supportive through it all.
How much did you enjoy playing Lipika and her contribution to the storyline?
Lipika is a RAW agent and I had never played one. I wanted to play characters that were far removed from my own reality. She goes through a roller coaster and it was super fun playing her. She is very pregnant, very irritable and finds herself in the midst of a really big boys club fight that got very real. She is muzzled by bureaucratic logic but manipulates it with humour and a lack of ego. I loved that about her. Just being angry is so boring and exhausting.
How has the transition been from being part of independent and niche films to a more mainstream arena?
The transition is not from one to another, but being able to do both. The growth in my work life has largely been so slow that it is almost difficult to see it until some twenty years pass. The slow and steady adage, I suppose, was written to cheer the likes of us.
Are you more secure today?
I am more secure in many ways and more fragile in many other ways. Professionally, I feel very grateful for all the opportunities and I want to work harder. But my sense of security and the lessening of fear have a lot to do with the strength and joy of my family and the extended network of generous specialists who have shared their wealth with me.
Have you experienced weak moments as an actor?
I have had a few moments of glimmering strength in a sea of failures, complaints, doubts and loathing. But those few moments keep you going. I have to keep working on my Hindi. I am a very slow learner. I give into sadness very easily unless I work on something every day. I used to find it so hard to laugh aloud, but now I can. It takes me a long time to learn a song or dance and I am an awful mimic.
