Girl Uninterrupted

Richa Chadda doesn’t mince words or beat around the bush. She is direct, much like the characters she plays with unblinking conviction.

It’s a cliché, but when you meet her, you really do think you know Richa Chadda from the troubled characters she plays. You’ve seen her play a 42-year-old firebrand (when she was barely 23) in Gangs Of Wasseypur, a petty criminal in Tamanchey, hurl abuses with ease in Fukrey and tug at heartstrings in Masaan. Then you meet her in person, and she gushes and bubbles with enthusiasm. The 30-year-old actor has just come from the swimsuit shoot, which she raves about not only because she loves working with photographer Ashish Chawla (I like his aesthetic sense), but also because it involved a pool (Did you see how happy I was just splashing about in the water?)

Richa likes to talk. She answers questions directly and substantively. At times forcefully. Always affably. If she doesn’t understand what you’re getting at, she will give you the side-eye, but it comes off as genuine, not derisive. “I don’t take bullshit anymore. I don’t even entertain it,” she says about the deep-rooted insecurity of most actors. It’s close to her heart and bubbles under the surface, particularly as it showed it’s ugly face recently. “Only yesterday, I caught a fellow actor giggling during an intense scene. He was trying to make me forget my lines. I called him out. I said, you can find other ways to express your insecurity. I am not going to budge. I may probably do the scene a little better. So you might want to back off.”

I expected her to have a voice that you could hear over a jet engine, but it isn’t. Her voice is almost meek. It cracks. It’s a kind voice. Possibly a little tired. Until she gets going. Talking to Richa is pretty straightforward and she is unfailingly polite, courteous, engaged and charming.