Sobhita Dhulipala: Identity should not be a fixed entity

Since the start of her career in the cinema, model-turned actress Sobhita Dhulipala has managed to strike a balance between working in various industries and breaking all the language barriers, be they in Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam, or Tamil.

During a conversation in the presence of her co-stars Anil Kapoor and Aditya Roy Kapur from the web series The Night Manager on the platform of FICCI Frames 2023, she was asked about the importance of the representation of characters from different regions in our cinema.

Sobhita said, "I have grown up in Vizag and spoke Telugu at home, and I think in Telugu. I moved to Mumbai after high school, and I speak Hindi now. It's been a good 14 years now. I am living in Mumbai, so in my life now, I do not know where my home is. We are the product of the experiences we have and also the product of the experiences we aspire to have. So I do not think any person represents one fixed thing. I just feel that identity is porous; there are no boundaries, and it is not defined. Who I was a couple of years ago is very different from the person I am now, and I am pretty positive. I would be fortunate if I were a different person in the days to come. It means that I am interacting in life with an open heart and observing whatever is good, and I am changing with the times."

The actress continued, "As far as the characters, as a child, while watching cinema, I watched Telugu, Tamil, and Hindi cinema as well. All I remember are the performances that touched my heart and the jokes that landed. You know, I did not even speak Hindi when I was a child, so I do not think representation must necessarily be taken out of context; I am genuinely very interested in submitting to a larger story that touches the heart. There are also silent films with no language, and I do not know what they are representing except the truth of human emotions. When it comes to fantasy films, I love Harry Potter. What are they representing? So I think films' characters should represent sentiment; they should represent feelings of the past and the future we aspire to have. Identity should not be a fixed entity."

The final season of The Night Manager will be released on June 30 on Disney Plus Hotstar.