Actor Riddhi Sen speaks to A Sarkar about the unconventional life he has lived while growing up in a household full of talented performers
When you meet Riddhi Sen you know he’s made from the chip off the old block. All of 20 and already a National Award winning actor, he is inspired from 83-year-old Bengali actor Soumitra Chatterjee, who has received the Legion of Honour and Dadasaheb Phalke Award.
He’s got the best kind of achievements as an actor and he still continues acting. “It is difficult to be satisfied with your work as an actor since it is linked so closely with our personhood. The older you grow the meaning keeps changing. It is the only profession with a direct connection to life. I think no award no matter how big it is can stop the growth of an actor. If they stop they are not an actor. Life teaches you about acting,” he said. Despite his years, there is no nervousness but enough humility for the opportunities he has had from a young age because of his family.
Son of actor/director Kaushik Sen and grandson of Chitra Sen, his playing ground had been the backstage of a theatre which led him to decide at the age of three and a half that acting was his Holy Grail. “I owe everything to my family. The most important thing while growing up is the ambience you see around since kids pick up from it. They learn more from observing and my parents taught me that acting is a subject you need to take out time to study just like physics and chemistry,” he said. Focussed on carving out a niche for himself from a young age, he stopped conventional schooling right after finishing his class 10. “My parents knew that physics and chemistry is not going to help me at the end of the day. Acting is what I actually want to do in life. My parents supported me silently even though lots of people said a lot of things,” he said.
He started out with helping with stage craft and light design at his father’s 25-year-old theatre group Swapnasandhani. “My mother says that when I came out of school at the end of the day I looked like a fish out of water but the moment I entered a theatre hall I was exuberant and happy. So they thought ‘why should we force our kid to do something he doesn’t like?’” he said.
When not working, he spends most of his time with his family and two friends, all of whom comprise of his close-knit friend circle. He doesn’t believe in partying or clubbing or even being on social media. “I started using Twitter for promotions. I am not on Instagram,” he said, unlike the millennial star children of Bollywood. We met him on the eve of the release of his Hindi film, Helicopter Eela, in which he played a central character with Kajol.
“It would take me to a wider audience. I am proud of the Hindi movies I did before. At the transformative age of 16-20, you don’t really get roles which are interesting. I have been lucky about the characters I got at my age. This one is at a bigger scale and I thank Pradeep Sarkar who trusted me with this character,” he said. In Bollywood, he counts Ajay Devgn, Kajol, Sarkar, Shoojit Sircar, Sujoy Ghosh and Leena Yadav among his mentors since they guide him about the work he should be taking on. And the young actor believes that the duration of his screen time doesn’t make a difference if the character that he plays contributes to the script.
“As long as a script is not giving out a wrong or derogatory message which will be harmful for the society I am okay with it. And my character can have three or 15 scenes but if there’s something the character is contributing to the script I am okay with it,” he said.
Before taking on Helicopter Eela he didn’t know that Ajay Devgn will be producing it. He has worked with Devgn’s production house in an earlier project, Parched, which had run into controversy over some bold scenes in the film.
In Devgn’s latest home production, Kajol played Riddhi’s mother and the film centres around the struggles and strains on their relationship when she enrolls at his college. He describes working with Kajol as “beautiful”.
“She is what she is. The interviews I read of her 15 years ago and now, nothing has changed. Her value system is so strong. I love people who don’t pretend and she speaks her mind. Seeing that from close proximity has been beautiful. When you’re doing a movie what you take back are the memories of the people you meet. If you dread going back to the set every morning it means that you’re not enjoying,” he said.
He remembers being treated like family by the cast and crew when he received the news of winning the National Award in 2018 while shooting for Helicopter Eela.
“Pradeep da announced it on the microphone and everyone was congratulating each other. They got a cake for me. What I loved is that when I got the news it was for what I love doing the most and I went right back to it in 10 minutes. It’s a rare moment,” he said.
Photo: Pankaj Kumar
