To put it very simply, Tillotama Shome is one of the best actors we currently have. Her versatility, artistic integrity, and commitment to meaningful storytelling has been seen over a career spanning more than two decades, where she has consistently chosen powerful, unconventional. With a Master's Degree in Educational Theatre from New York University she also taught theatre to inmates at a high-security prison. Making her debut with Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding (2001), she played stand out roles in movies and web series such as Qissa, Sir, A Death in the Gunj, Delhi Crime Season 2, Lust Stories 2 and Paatal Lok Season 2. Tillotama has also been practicing Nichiren Diashonin’s Buddhism, a spiritual practice, which she credits as the backbone of her life.
Her most recent project was the courtroom drama Ikka on Netflix, directed by Siddharth P. Malhotra. Over a 30 minute long zoom video interview with us, she spoke about her experience working on the film, the misconception we have about those in prison and more.
Excerpts:
Why were you surprised when you got a call for Ikka?
When i got a call from the director, I wasn't really sure how serious he was, because i don’t get calls for these kind of films (big scale and stars) very often. So i was shocked, but what moved me was how sincerely he wanted me to be part of the film, as he had seen my prior work.
Tell us about working with Siddharth, Sunny, Akshaye and Dia.
Siddharth really respects people irrespective of what their stardom or perceived stardom is. And at this point of time in my life, i want to work with good people. I do not necessarily want to work on a great script with a director who has a foul temper or bad behaviour. Since I've been working for a while, so I have some savings, and these are options that I have, because I'm not a newcomer in the industry now who has to take on a job irrespective of what the environment on set is like. Neither am I not so smitten by the genius of any director, that i shall tolerate their bad behaviour. I’m 47 years old, not a child who's going to be schooled on set. Sid, far from being foul-tempered, is one of the nicest people you can work with.
Akshaye i didn’t get to know well, as he would walk into set in character, and that’s his process, and i respect it. Dia, again, we didn’t have any scenes together, but i heard she was quiet the ‘mama’ on set, concerned about everybody's well-being.
Sunny was the one with whom i had the bulk of my scenes, and someone who’s been in the industry sometimes treats it as a right to behave badly, but not him- I really want to be like that after another 30 years of working in the industry. He is an introvert, but he’s warm. His silences were not something that made one uncomfortable. You could sit with him in silence in the same room and feel very comfortable. If somebody wanted to come and talk to him, they could talk to him and be soft-spoken. We were shooting during an extremely trying time for him, when his father’s health was serious. Sunny was extremely emotional and was unabashedly crying. It was so nice to see a man in this very toxic age of masculinity, who could have this kind of gentleness. Especially someone who has played these high-octane, action heroes on celluloid life.
Is it true that in the US you were also teaching drama to murder convicts? Did you feel scared at any point?
So people in Rikers Island (New York City) prison serve time for different kinds of crimes, it was not a prison just for murder convicts. They're a high security prison and you have to go through four rounds of metal detector checks, it takes 20 minutes to just enter that classroom. I think I might have felt safer inside Rikers than I did in 17 years in Delhi. Using public transport, going to college from Vasant Kunj to to North Campus, and travelling back in the evening after sundown was what was really scary.
Also, the line between being in prison and outside is one of privilege, it also makes a difference if you have a supportive family and friends who can stand by you when you hit the darkness in your life, which we all do. It also makes a difference whether you got a good lawyer on your side. A lot of them do not get fair representation and to say they’re all murderers, that is very offensive to me.
