New Delhi: This is Wamiqa Gabbi’s year. She launched 2023 with Fursat, Vishal Bhardwaj’s 30-minute musical, and followed it up with a mesmerising performance as courtesan Niloufer Qureshi in Vikramaditya Motwane’s Jubilee. She straddled the north-south divide with ease when she starred in the sixth episode of Modern Love Chennai, while September saw her headline two more Bhardwaj projects–the hugely popular Netflix series Khufiya and Charlie Chopra and the Mystery of Solang Valley on Sony Liv.
Like many struggling actors, Gabbi almost gave up acting. There was an absence of joy and the kind of roles she wanted. Everything changed after a Netflix project that never took off.
Gabbi was ecstatic when she got a part in Bhardwaj’s adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children in 2018, but it was short-lived—the project was shelved.
What seemed like the end proved to be the second innings of Gabbi’s career. Motwane offered her the character of Niloufer, and the breakthrough role got her accolades, adulation, and awards.
“Some people just don’t know how to give up and that’s how Niloufer is. She’s a survivor. She doesn’t know how else to be,” Gabbi says about the character she plays in the web series, Jubilee.
Born for the stage
Wamiqa Gabbi always knew she wanted to be an actor. Her parents figured it out sooner.
“My father always says that within 15 minutes of my birth, he knew I was going to be an actress,” says Gabbi. By the time she was eight, she made her television debut in a Punjabi serial, Saude Dillan Di (2006).
She had no ‘star family’ or Bollywood contacts, but she had boundless determination. She remembers with absolute clarity her first day on a movie set—Imtiaz Ali’s Jab We Met (2017). She was in Class 7 at the time.
“I played Kareena Kapoor’s sister and we had names like ‘Saali 1’ and ‘Saali 2’. I played the youngest sister-in-law,” says Gabbi. The film was a hit, and she revelled in being part of a project that felt like a big fat Punjabi wedding.
She stayed in touch with Ali and wrote letters to him. “He still calls me chhoti wali (the younger one),” said Gabbi, referring to her role in Jab We Met.
While consuming movies and courting Bollywood for roles, she learned Kathak. She recalls dancing for hours on end to the songs on Devdas. “I rewatched the movie so many times on VCR that the tape stopped displaying images after a point. I would keep listening to the audio. Recently, my brother and I sang the whole song, and we even gave the beat for Kahe Chhed Chhed Mohe,” said Gabbi.
The dance lessons helped the actor bring to life the grace, as well as the vulnerability and sassiness, of Niloufer to screen. In Jubilee, Gabbi’s expressions as a courtesan performing for her many suitors in Pakistan or her complete infatuation, and eventually love, for Madan Kumar (Aparshakti Khurana) breathe life into the frames. But her best performance comes when she dances—with the grace of Madhubala— in Babuji Bhole Bhale song.
She also shows her range in the final moments, going from anticipation to anger to hopelessness.
Also read: Vishal Bhardwaj almost didn’t make Khufiya. Irrfan Khan scolded him for it
North to south
Gabbi had blink-and-miss appearances in movies like Mausam (2011) and Love Aaj Kal (2014). Her first lead came with the coming-of-age movie Sixteen (2013), where she played a young teenager Tanisha.
“Wamiqa Gabbi gives the most consistent performance of the film as the ‘unlucky’ Tanisha who struggles to understand why life is constantly slamming the door on her pretty face.In his review of the movie,” writes film critic Tushar Joshi.
When she was 16, Gabbi got a call for the Tamil film Maalai Nerathu Mayakkam (2016). “I wasn’t choosing these roles. I was just doing whatever work I got because nobody knew me back then,” says Gabbi, whose goal was to make herself a recognisable name across India.
The romantic drama brought a slew of projects from the South, including Iravaakaalam. Her next big film was director Basil Joseph’s Malayalam movie Godha. “When I was approached, I wondered where did you hear about me? Aren’t there better actors?” said Gabbi. She underwent a month-long training session at an akhara in Amritsar to prepare for her role of a young wrestler.
Gabbi speaks Punjabi for the most part in the movie, barring when she interacts with Aanjaneya (Tovino Thomas) and his father. The film became Thomas’ highest grossing movie in Malayalam at that point, with the final collection crossing Rs 18 crore.
As she moved from one project to another, Gabbi became unsure about her acting career. This was the time when she said yes to 83, the 2021 film based on India’s 1983 World Cup win. Gabbi had a small appearance. “ I said yes to 83 because I had never been to London, and frankly, I was also considering giving up acting,” she said.
Also read: ‘Hindi ko fark padta hai!’—Literature alone can’t save the language
Lucky break
You cannot take the Punjabi out of Wamiqa Gabbi, and Bhardwaj uses this judiciously in Charlie Chopra and the Mystery of Solang Valley.
“When she talks in Punjabi, her whole demeanour changes. That is how I decided we needed Charlie to speak in Punjabi when she breaks the fourth wall in the show,” he said.
She holds her own against actors like Neena Gupta, Naseeruddin Shah, and Ratna Pathak Shah. It wouldn’t be amiss to say that the slow burn thriller rests on Gabbi’s shoulders as she becomes a small-time private detective, battling her own demons of being abandoned by her mother and cheated on by her boyfriend.
Her tempestuous behaviour, be it throwing the phone of a journalist in the river or cutting off her hair when she discovers her boyfriend’s infidelity, is balanced by the sensitivity with which she listens to her clients sharing their deepest secrets.
Bhardwaj’s shelved adaptation of Midnight’s Children, however, had a perk. Gabbi and other actors got a chance to attend a three-day acting workshop with filmmaker and acting coach, Atul Mongia. “Acting classes are quite expensive and I thought here was a chance to learn something. I took it,” she says.
Perhaps it was those classes that helped Gabbi ace her role as Charu, the wife of spy Ravi Mohan (Ali Fazl) in Khufiya.
“I was unable to get my emotions correct in a scene, and Vishal sir told me to imagine what it would feel like if someone took away my father and I would never get to see him again. That brought out the emotions,” said Gabbi.
Niloufer, Charu, and Charlie—Gabbi has moved from courtesan to wife to detective this year.
“What can I say, I am just a very lucky girl.”