Foreign RETURNED

After making her name as an actor in international projects, TILLOTAMA SHOME is finding an audience in Bharat as well, finds TANISHA BHATTACHARYA

- TANISHA BHATTACHARYA

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