Sarita Choudhury: I feel like if I don’t go to India once a year, I lose my sense of roots

Sarita Choudhury started her career with Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala, followed it up with two more films with the director, played characters of half a dozen nationalities and has now also found a strong fan base on television for playing Mira Berenson in Homeland. But despite working in Hollywood and living in New York for many years, she insists that her heart stays in India, which is also where her parents live.
Excerpts from a chat:
I don’t just want to work in Hollywood
Sarita’s debut, Mississippi Masala, became an art-house hit.A few years later, she did the much talked about Kama Sutra. Sarita didn’t even come to India to promote the film because it ran into censorship troubles. After that, she was offered Bollywood films, none of which interested her at the time. Now, however, Sarita’s noticed a change in the Indian film industry, and is waiting for an opportunity to work in it.
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“There are so many Indian directors now who are doing this kind of work where a film is still independent but still has a little bit of Bollywood in it. I think the writing has changed, maybe because women have become a little more emancipated. I get many more scripts by women now, and that’s kind of exciting, because those topics are current and they’re not shying away from anything, and that’s the stuff that appeals to me. In the last five years, I’ve noticed this shift in India and that’s exciting,” she says, adding, “Just the other day, I was thinking, people must be thinking that I live in America, so I only want to do stuff here. And I thought that I really have to let people know that’s it’s not true. I’m just looking for a good story. People have this impression that once you move to America, that becomes your interest. But I never moved to Los Angeles, I stayed in New York because I do theatre, so my aim is not just Hollywood. European and Indian cinema to me is where it all started. Some people are very ambitious and plan their whole careers, but I am not that kind of a person. I live in New York, I go to dance class, I do theatre. When things are sent to me, if I like them, I push to do them. And I would absolutely love to do anything that’s part of my dad’s homeland.”
If I don’t come to India, I feel like I lose my sense of roots
Sarita makes sure that she visits India once a year, but hasn’t been able to in 2014 because of her schedule. She says, “This has been such a crazy year for me because I’ve done three films and I’ve been shooting all over – Morocco, Germany, Paris. This year has been different. I miss going to India so much, so I’m trying to come there for Christmas. That’s my aim. I feel like if I don’t go to India once a year, I lose my sense of roots. I have an Indian father, and when you grow up in a house with an Indian father, culturally that’s what becomes dominant in the house. So that’s the tradition we grew up with. And it’s not a coincidence that my dad retired and moved back home to Calcutta. So, no matter which country my brother and I grew up in, we would come home to my father. And that stayed with me, that’s my heart.”
Happy to have Nimrat and Suraj on Homeland
This season of Homeland has two Indian actors as guest actors – Suraj Sharma and Nimrat Kaur. Sarita’s seen both Life Of Pie and The Lunchbox, and seems to be a fan of these actors’ works. She says, “I was very happy that they picked those two actors, because for Homeland, even when they pick American actors, they have to be actors that fit in. They can’t be too famous because you also have to believe the storyline. Specifically for these two, their style really matches Homeland. What I love about Suraj and Nimrat is that they have such a grounded reality about them, they’re not from Bollywood, and they don’t have a history that they bring with them. I was very happy when I heard that they were brought on board because I know India’s following Homeland, and it’s so great to have two of their actors in it.”
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