Bhumika Chawla: Even after spending 23 years in the film industry, I still feel like a beginner

Bhumika Chawla has been working simultaneously in Hindi as well as regional film industries, but the actor says, people in Bollywood feel that she has stopped working altogether, and that’s why she hasn’t been getting enough work.

“Either I am not a good actor or my PRs are not making enough calls, or they don’t know I am working still. I honestly don’t know,” quips Chawla, whose last film, Sita Raman was a direct-to-OTT release. The actor is now busy shooting for a new Tamil film and preparing for the first schedule of her unannounced Hindi film , which will go on floors in January next year.

Recounting the times when she had started her acting journey, Chawla says it used to be a different ball game altogether. “But now, I don’t know how the industry works. Like if I want to work with someone on a streaming giant, I don’t know how to enter that zone. I could actually put up on my [social media] page and say that, ‘I am looking for work and somebody give me work’, but I don’t know who to approach. May be I should connect with some agency and they can help me get some good work. I still feel like I am beginner, a newcomer, a student,” the actor shares.

Chawla made her Hindi film debut with Tere Naam (2003) and she credits audiences that she has managed to survive in this industry for so long. “I have spent almost 23 years [in films] and I can give the credit only to God, audience and industry people who have been kind enough to give me work. I still don’t know how the show business works. It’s like a gamble. It’s like, ‘Let’s go on social media, let’s make a few calls, let’s attend a few parties’. You don’t really know what’s going to work,” she tells us.

Sounding content with how her journey panned out in all these years, Chawla doesn’t mind admitting that she is looking for good opportunities. “I am very happy with what I have done so far, but I am still hungry for good work. I still want to work with people who can bring out the best in me. I am not going to sit down and not want to grow – not just in terms of work, but also as a person,” she states.

As someone who has worked in both Hindi and regional films, ask her if the lines between North and South are really blurring, and she says, “The divide got blurred ages ago… it’s only being noticed now. I remember how the South films dubbed in Hindi used to run on TV channels, and we all used to watch it. So, people have always loved the content from regional areas. It’s not a new thing. Having said that, with the magnum opus films, the theatrical releases have definitely increased, thereby increasing the viewership in North.”