When you have a mentor in ace director Anurag Kashyap, you should thank your lucky stars. And that’s what Kashyap’s latest film heroine Sukhmani Sadana is doing these days. The actress who started off as a writer and model, working in TV shows like Khote Sikey, worked with Abhishek Bachchan in Kashyap’s Manmarziyan. She enacts the role of Lovely, a sweet, homely dentist, who Abhishek’s mother wants him to marry.
While this has a very sweet role Sukhmani had been offered, the actress is happy that she has found a mentor in Kashyap. Apparently, Anurag had casted her in the web series Sacred Games, where Sukhmani was part of the cast that included Saif Ali Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. She says, “Kashyap sir had seen my work in the film and he found me appropriate for this role in Manmarziyan. It’s a small role but I enjoyed being part of the film. I feel that it is a delight to work in his films as the characters and roles in his films are very well-written and edgy. They have a definite role to play and I am not just someone in the film.” Sukhmani was portrayed as the ‘ideal’ marriage material girl any boy would want to marry and any parents would want as their daughter-in-law.
The actress, who was in Sacred Games, feels that the digital world has opened up doors for Bollywood actors who do not have Godfathers in the industry. “Many actors do not want to be part of saas-bahu type shows and therefore when Sacred Games was offered, I was very happy.”
Apart from films and web series, Sukhmani is also a writer and is currently penning a feature film and a web series. She is also about to start acting in a web series soon. She says, “I like writing because the target audience for films and web series is progressive. It reaches to the right people.”
The actress has also worked on the scripts of Bollywood films like Creature, Kyaa Super Kool Hain Hum and 1920 London. On a parting note she tells us that she wants to keep working. She says, “As an actor or writer, I just wish to keep getting really great work. I always keep telling everyone that it hardly matters if you are doing small projects or big projects. You should not get out of practice.”