When actress Charithra Chandran was chosen to do the role of Edwina Sharma in Bridgerton season 2, it became the talk of the town. She played the role of this Indian-origin elite who travelled from Mumbai to London in search of love and marriage.  

The actress is a proud Indian and the world applauded her acting skills in the show. But the actress doesn’t seem to be too optimistic about working in her own country. Bollywood is one of the biggest entertainment industries in the world and every actor aspires to have a few names in their kitty. But does Chandran too dream of that? 

In a recent interview, when she was asked about working in Bollywood, she replied, “I’m currently shooting my first feature for Prime Video, which is exciting. It’s been a wonderful experience and a completely different role to anything I’ve done before. At this current moment in the Indian film industry, I suspect I’m too dark and don’t have enough connections to be offered anything. But to me, there isn’t much distinction in the art of acting between English language films and other language films including Indian films. In the Tamil film industry, my favourite actors were Suriya, Jyothika and R Madhavan. In Bollywood, I’ve always liked Aamir Khan and Vidya Balan.” 

While there is so much chatter around the preference Bollywood gives to light-coloured people, not much has changed. It is also unfortunate how nepotism prevents talents from different corners of the world from getting recognition in Bollywood.  

Talking about what she feels about India in general she said, “I think of it as home as that’s where my family’s from. I’m so proud to be Indian, in fact, I think it’s a privilege I was born into such a rich and beautiful culture. I try to keep up to date with what’s happening and songs and films as much as possible—although I have not been as good at it in the past few years.” 

The 25-year-old actress started her acting career in 2020. She played the role of Sabina Pleasance in Alex Rider and is currently working on Pillow Talk as Stella.  

Lead Image: Netflix