Fatima Sana Shaikh had a smashing debut in Aamir Khan’s sports biopic Dangal and is basking in the glory of her recent releases Ludo and Suraj Pe Mangal Bhari. However, very few people know that Fatima was a child artist and ruled the screen in Kamal Haasan and Tabu starrer Chachi 420. However, unlike Hollywood, Bollywood child artists rarely blossom into leading ladies.
In an exclusive interview with PeepingMoon.com, Fatima spoke about how she made the successful transition from a child artist to the leading lady of films and why we don’t see many child actors ruling the roost once they grow up.
Fatima said, “I don’t know what it is, I don’t know why it is like that but unfortunately even I’ve noticed not a lot of child actors in India especially get into films later on. Maybe because there are lot of child actors and maybe because after a time child actors themselves lose interest in acting, even I faced this at one point of time, because it becomes very overwhelming and after a time sometimes you feel ‘that’s enough, I don’t want to continue with this anymore’. I realized that when I was auditioning I used to feel that if you’re a child actor then you will get roles. But it did not work like that and that baggage I never carried, although I did mention that I was that kid in Chachi 420 but it did not matter after a point of time.”
She further added, “So I don’t know how it works and what people want. People used to tell me that I’ve got an ‘ad face’ but I did not get any ads. When I was very young and trying different things I realized that acting really makes me happy, hence I decided to give it a shot, then I started auditioning again and started my struggle again. When they cast me for Dangal they did not take Chachi 420 into consideration, they only took what fitted the character and whether the audition is good or no. I made it so I am happy.”
(Transcribe By: Vandana Srivastawa)
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