Actress Konkana Sen Sharma, who made her acting debut at the age of three while hanging out on a Bengali film set with her actor-turned-director mother Aparna Sen, says her relationship with films changed after she did 'Mr and Mrs Iyer'.
Sharing her Bollywood journey with a packed audience here at Australia India Institute's Satyajit Ray memorial lecture, Sen said the movie that got her the National award for best actress gave her a chance to see all the aspects of acting in films.
"I was not sure about acting, so my mother offered this role and she is very good at tricking me. She said, 'You help me and be my research assistant'. I went to Chennai to research on Iyers which was great fun and experience," said Sen, who is also attending the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne.
"I was looking for jobs in Delhi after doing 'Mr and Mrs Iyer', and then the film won awards and I won the National award and my life changed. Suddenly people were aware that I was acting. And I realised that this is something that I enjoy. My relationship with acting changed a lot," the 34-year-old actress said.
Sen, whose resume boasts of a number of Bengali, Hindi and English films, describes herself as the champion of the underdog, and said Bengali films were her real children and Hindi films her step children.
Reminiscing her first debut film 'Indirah' as a child artist in 1983, Sen said, "They needed a little boy. They did not have a child so they cut my hair and put me in film. That was the inglorious beginning of my acting career.
"I would love to be a boy in a film. We are really disadvantaged. Women don't get as many roles as men. They don't get paid as much as they do either. These are the inequalities that most industries have," she said.
