Hollywood Dreams

SHEENA CHOHAN IS MAKING WAVES IN TINSEL TOWN AND OWES IT ALL TO HER LOVE FOR CINEMA

- NAMITA GUPTA

Sheena's dream has always been to bring characters to life on stage and screen. "I was shy and acting was my outlet for expression. I felt more in touch with life. A story has characters and I love to understand their emotions and bring about what the director needs."

"I was a shy child. I unexpectedly discovered that I could become someone else by acting and that I had a talent to assume the character. And even though I was portraying someone else's emotions it put me in touch with my own feelings. I love the theatre also but it is transitory-once the performance is made it is gone-and the character with it. But movies continue and my character lives on.

When I started out...I just wanted to act. I just wanted to express, I just wanted to move people, the joy of making people feel enlivened, made me feel like I was living my dream. It's a lot of fun to live being different people, different lives, which my profession allows me to do. I'm so thankful to the top award-winning Directors I've worked with who showed me what being natural is and who taught me how to create and bring out a characters world who brought out my real emotions and feelings for the character."

The first test of her own character was the early years of struggle in Delhi theaters, working with the esteemed and experimental director Arvind Gaur. It was these years of the acting craft and soul searching on his thought-provoking stages, where Sheena honed her ability to get into a wide variety of characters. Her work got the attention of Jayaraj and she was cast with Malayalam megastar, Mammootty. She gained popularity when she played Mammootty's wife in the action thriller The Train. This immediately led to two films inspired by Tagore for National Award-winning legendary director Buddhadeb Dasgupta.