Silent no more

Mona

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The Silent Statue was not an easy film for actor Richa Sony to yes to. But then, they say adventures pay, now that the short film has made it to Cannes, Richa is ecstatic.

Playing a mute girl who allows her desire to make her do something that she is not really proud of entailed some bold lovemaking scenes and that made this small town girl say a straight no to this project. Only the director Lal Vijay Shahdeo was not ready to take no for an answer. “He simply told me that you are not going home till you say yes,” shares Richa, who sat in the director’s office for two hours staring at the contract. “There was this particularly bold scene that I couldn’t bring myself to say yes to but director’s persuasion worked.” After a few cups of black coffee, she did sign the contract but that was the easiest part of the journey that lay in front of Richa in order to be Vasu.

“I just couldn’t relate to the character of Vasu and cried in between the shots almost giving up at times,” she admits but then the director’s deft handling made her complete the job and Richa couldn’t be happier.

“For one, I was happy that someone has shown faith in me,” says the girl who faced colossal criticism for being ‘too’ thin and ‘too dark’ as she debuted in soap, Bhagyavidhata. “I feel the greatest learning comes from failures. Success is all right and, it’s from our mistakes that we learn the most. Courtesy the criticism that came my way, I am no longer the same person but I am a much better version of the older me,” she laughs. She couldn’t make it to Cannes this time but no regrets, “Who knows next time I might go to get an award,” says the confident girl busy hosting a reality show and also filming a UNICEF programme for BBC.

mona@tribunemail.com