Tillotama Shome opens up on feeling like an outsider at Bollywood events: ‘No one would say hi’

Actor Tillotama Shome, who has delivered a series of acclaimed performances like ‘The Night Manager’ and ‘Lust Stories 2’, shared how she was made to feel like an outsider by Bollywood elites.

In a Film Companion roundtable interview, Tillotama shared that this made her resentful and bitter towards the industry, but this hurt her more than anyone else, as she stopped getting work for years.

Tillotama said, ‘The industry is not one person, it’s a group of people. But I had felt outside that group for 20 years, because I did the kind of films that weren’t released in India, or had very limited release. So, I had the great satisfaction of meeting many wonderful people, wonderful crew, wonderful directors, and being a part of wonderful stories. But I also had to contend with the loneliness of not knowing people in Mumbai.’

She continued, ‘In those rare occasions where there would be a public screening, and one would be invited, almost by mistake, I would feel so out of place, because no one would say hi. Our parents enforced in our upbringing that you say hello to everybody in the room, but it wasn’t a very forthcoming room. The mistake I made was I saw this room, I judged the room, I left the room. When you become that judgy, that cynical — you may have all your reasons — it starts eating you up from the inside. And very quickly, in those two years, not only did I repulse work, no work came my way, and I was also on a high horse…’

Tillotama said that she had to change her mindset, which resulted in her doing more work in one year than she had ever done before.

She said that her mother’s positive attitude turned her mindset around, and put things in perspective, because she was unwell at the time.

‘I started attracting all this work. Six-seven projects in a year and a half. I had 20 years of waiting and whining,’ she said.

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