Girl On The Rise

Sobhita Dhulipala is a thinker, the rare maverick you didn't know the industry needed. And while she’s set to conquer the web world and beyond, she lets us in on the riveting journey it’s been so far

- Tanya Mehta

The dawn of a celebrity cover shoot is a curious occasion, it’s the ultimate case of the ‘Instagram vs Reality’ conundrum. Over the years, we’ve seen actors pull up in flashy cars, headed by a clamorous entourage as they shake your hand with their sunglasses still on, and then there are those that just blend into the background – quiet, yet unassuming. When Sobhita Dhulipala walks on set, she’s a far cry from her recent onscreen avatar of Tara Khurana in the Amazon Prime Original Made in Heaven, the upper-crust Delhi wife in perfectly tailored suits and blow-dried hair. No, Dhulipala is dressed in a crisp white shirt, her father’s vintage jeans (we asked, duh) and chunky sneakers, that’s when it strikes you, that she actually is a millennial.

This couldn't be a more fitting time to turn the spotlight on the young actor, in what seems like a startlingly short period of time, her trajectory has been noteworthy. We first saw her onscreen in Anurag Kashyap’s 2016 crime drama, Raman Raghav 2.0, where she essayed the role of an abusive police officer’s girlfriend. Full lips and doe eyes aside, you couldn’t evade the fact that Dhulipala had a presence, as she wore the dark slick of her character with equal vulnerability and confidence. But years before her debut, Dhulipala, now 26, describes herself as the “Sweet, little, foolish kid who was good at academics.”

THE STARTING LINE