Mumbai: In the 2001 film Monsoon Wedding, Tillotama Shome plays Alice, a young Christian domestic worker from Bihar, who is caught up in the ongoing wedding festivities at the Verma household. Shome was sure that the audition call for it was a prank. “Who gets offered a Mira Nair film like that?” said Shome.
At 19 years old, Shome created a pop culture moment with her debut performance. The frame of her holding up the bride-to-be Aditi’s jewellery and posing in front of the mirror is unforgettable. She conveys longing, joy, fear and coyness without a single word.
Decades later, she continues to do so with every role she plays. Whether it’s the criminal Karishma in the second season of Delhi Crime, a young woman navigating her father’s desire for a son in Qissa, the urbane professional Isheeta in The Mirror, or SP Meghna Barua in Pataal Lok Season 2, Shome has become an integral part of powerful storytelling, especially on OTT. She is carving out a niche for herself beyond the universe that the leading ladies of Bollywood are expected to occupy. Shome, who is also an aspiring producer, is invested in inclusive storytelling. She has a vision for female characters on screen. “What has become important is that I should be able to show the humanity of all the women I play on screen, irrespective of who they are—morally corrupt, hero or villain,” said Shome. Her philosophy glimmers through in her work, and filmmakers who have worked with her acknowledge her unique gift.
“Whether she plays a daughter, a mother, a modern working woman or even a foaming-at-the-mouth killer, her performances are not a pathetic mirroring of the social, cultural milieu, but an attempt to open within all of us our socially frightened wings so that we might soar into a gesture that is truly the impulse of our life,” said Anup Singh, who directed Shome in his film Qissa (2013).
In Paatal Lok, she handles warring drug lords, looks on with mistrust and disdain as Delhi cop Hathiram Chaudhari (Jaideep Ahlawat) tries to investigate, and firmly puts down gendered responses of her junior cop, all while speaking flawless Nagamese.
“It was Tillotama who insisted on speaking Nagamese, and our researcher Anungla Longkumer worked with her. I am from Assam, and I know when an accent sounds fake. But when Tillotama spoke, it was like she was a native speaker,” said screenwriter and director Sudip Sharma.
Shome, a Bengali who has lived in Delhi, among other cities, was impeccable as Meghna. The Paatal Lok director had watched Shome’s Sir (2018), and he was floored by her performance. In it, Shome plays a widowed domestic worker who manages Ashwin’s (Vivek Gomber) upscale Mumbai apartment while apprenticing at a tailor’s to become a fashion designer.
“I had learnt Assamese for a film with director Rima Das. It never worked. But with Paatal Lok, I had the chance to put it to use,” said Shome. The actor even added layers to the accent. “Meghna’s Nagamese had to have a tint of Assamese too. I wanted to get the accent right. There is nothing scarier to me as an actor than to make local people feel like they are misrepresented,” said Shome.
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Foraged flowers and friendships
Born in Kolkata, Shome grew up all over India since her father was with the Indian Air Force. She went to Delhi’s Lady Shri Ram College, where she was a part of a part of Asmita theatre group. An English literature student, Shome’s Versova home is a testament to her love of books. Her spacious drawing room has a tall tower of books, placed next to a floor-length oil painting. The eclectic collection on display includes Irrfan: Dialogues With the Wind by Anup Singh, Farah Bahir’s Rumours of Spring and Agatha Christie’s Third Girl. A small placard outside the home she shares with her husband, Kunal Ross, reads—‘Shome-Ross’
Her plants occupy pride of place on the window railing. “I got them from my travels,” said Shome, beaming, as she looked lovingly at the orchids, ferns and caladium.
There is nothing scarier to me as an actor than to make local people feel like they are misrepresented
– Tillotama Shome
In between sips of tea on a Friday afternoon, Shome managed household chores, sent voicenotes for work and even packed for a red-eye flight. “I have cat-proofed my apartment because a friend is dropping off his cats for some time,” said Shome.
Friends and colleagues alike speak of her warmth and sense of humour. During the shoot of Paatal Lok, as the team travelled from Nagaland to Kalimpong, Shome would make tea for Sharma and a few others. “I remember when she came for the first reading, she was crocheting, and a bit aloof,” said Sharma. But within a few days of the shoot, that changed. Shome’s room became the adda for chai. “She foraged flowers and placed them in our rooms, and that’s really how she is—sweet and also extremely funny,” said Sharma.
Shome credits this openness to her parents.
“My parents are progressive, something I realised in retrospect. An extraordinary quality that both possess is the ability to treat everyone they encounter equally. This seems like a very simple thing, but it’s very, very hard to pull off,” said Shome.
Bagging Monsoon Wedding
Shome was razor-focused on securing an admission abroad when casting director Dilip Shanker called her on the landline, wanting to discuss a Mira Nair film about a Punjabi wedding.
Shome went to the audition at the India Habitat Centre with her mother. She was convinced it was a hoax call, and even told her mother to check in on her after an hour. But when she entered the room, Nair was waiting.
“I knew that she teaches at Columbia University, and I asked her if she would write me a letter of reference. Then I learnt her husband taught there too, and I asked if he would be okay writing one too,” said Shome, laughing as she remembered the details of the fateful day.
Shome was so happy about getting the letters that she almost forgot why she had come after all. Her audition did not go well either. But in her second attempt, Shome bagged the role.
“I remember the very first time I saw Tillo. It was at a film festival. She was in a white saree. We were all fans, she had done a Mira Nair film after all,” said Konkona Sen Sharma, actor and an old friend. But Shome would soon leave the limelight for academics.
Her move to give up acting was called “career suicide” by Naseeruddin Shah. Armed with an Inlaks scholarship, Shome completed her Master’s in drama therapy at New York University and started doing therapy work with inmates in the high-security Rikers Island prison complex in 2004.
Improvisational work at prison taught her more than any acting school could have, she said. It toughened her and made her resilient. She remembers the diversity of stories and grey narratives thrown at her every day, the constant exposure to the frailty of human beings.
“Working with them taught me that the line between innocent and guilty is so thin, and it has a lot to do with privilege. When I am on the edge, do I have a circle of friends, enablers, partners who can pull me back?” said Shome.
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A long wait
After four-and-a-half years in the US, she decided to return to Mumbai in 2008—just when she had got an O1 visa and a fully-paid PhD programme at the University of Michigan.
Shome’s parents supported her career choices, including her decision to get back to acting after a hiatus.
“They had instilled in me the understanding that I had to work toward my financial independence. They did equate education with freedom, and I inherited that understanding. Hence, it was very important for me to study. I have no regrets that after Monsoon Wedding, I chose to leave films and pursue academia. It enriched my life in myriad ways beyond my ability to act,” said Shome.
But she realised that she didn’t pursue acting as a career in India due to a fear of failure, and she wanted to overcome that.
The actor struggled with landing roles that gave her visibility. She acted in the commercial Hindi film Turning 30 (2009) about a woman negotiating her 30s with her two friends and the Bengali indie fantasy film Tasher Desh (2012) where she played a quirky queen.
“I questioned my decision, crawled into a catatonic state of escape into long hours of sleep. It was an immense amount of work to pull myself out of these dark holes in a new city where I knew just a few odd people,” said Shome. But the waiting and rejections sharpened her desire to act.
“Funny, isn’t it? I would have perhaps enjoyed the wait, had I known after twenty years I would get work,” said Shome.
It was Anup Singh’s Indo-German film Qissa, that became a game changer in 2013. In it, Shome played a young woman who is forced by her father, Umber (Irrfan Khan), to live as a man. Umber’s desire for a son makes him force her to suppress her own identity, and instead do everything that Umber wants in a son.
Shome’s role, as a dutiful child who loves her father so much that she is willing to participate in his misguided quest, rightfully catapulted her back into the spotlight.
“We both realised that we had to fold this madness into simple gestures. For instance, the slow folding of her sleeve over her arm or the forlorn turn away of the body whenever she could not turn her eyes away from the torment and heartache of her life. This transfer of anguish into small, restrained gestures, I believe, made her performance devastatingly expressive,” said director Anup Singh.
Singh conducted a long workshop for all the actors to fit into their roles, and with Khan’s guidance, the actor worked hard to showcase Singh’s vision.
For the film’s audition, Singh asked Shome to perform an unusual scene. “He asked me to contort my body as much as possible, and when I could not do it any more, he asked me to say ‘ma’,” said Shome. Initially, Shome did not understand the significance of the exercise, but as she did it, the actor understood it was meant to convey Kanwar’s pain and suppression.
Understanding the soul of her character has been the key to the kind of standout performances Shome has consistently delivered.
I have no regrets that after Monsoon Wedding, I chose to leave films and pursue academia. It enriched my life in myriad ways beyond my ability to act.
– Tillotama Shome
Shome’s perspective on acting shifted again in 2018, when her father had serious health issues and her mother was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. “If I have to leave my parents at home, vulnerable and go to work, it must mean something,” she said.
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Playing a criminal
Shome plays Karishma, a criminal, in season 2 of Delhi Crime, released in 2022. She is mindful of the politics of portraying certain characters on screen.
“I did not want to make violence cool. It was very important for me that whoever watches the show sees the human being behind these violent acts. You may not be able to relate to the violence, but you must be able to relate to the humiliation, the number of times she has been snubbed, may have been marginalised and the fact that she was never asked if she wanted a child,” said Shome.
The actor who has lived in Delhi is acutely aware of how scarring it can be to be constantly looking over one’s shoulder in anticipation of violence. Even in New York, there were instances where she was anxious when someone would walk too close to her, as she anticipated something going wrong.
What helped in making Shome’s performance stand out was the fact that she had worked with the director Tanuj Chopra during her stint in New York. He understood her method. In one scene, Karishma mimes cutting the hair of a customer, as she stands on an empty floor, dreaming of her own salon. Shome had improvised the gesture. It made the final edit.
The role won her Best Supporting Actor (Female) at the 2023 Filmfare OTT Awards. It was her second Filmfare. She had bagged the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Actress in 2021 for Sir.
Konkona Sen Sharma, who directed Shome in A Death In The Gunj (2016) and the short The Mirror, part of Netflix’s Lust Stories 2, has known the actor for years, sharing a close friendship. The two first met at a common friend’s house in 2010.
“When I was writing A Death In The Gunj, she was one of my first choices for the film, along with Vikrant Massey and Ranvir Shorey. It was my first film and I was already so nervous, I relied heavily on the fact that she would understand me, the world, and that she would fit into the upper-middle-class Bengali world,” said Sen Sharma.
A Death in the Gunj looks at a dysfunctional family that is so caught up in personal grievances that it does not realise one of its members is missing, until it’s too late.
In 2024, Sharma cast Shome as Isheeta for her second directorial venture. “I knew she was not the stereotypical female protagonist, and I was also getting annoyed how she would constantly get cast as the bai. I wanted her not to be the bai in The Mirror. I knew it had to break the mould,” said Sen Sharma.
Dressed in a white top and a pleated blue skirt, the chic, no-nonsense Isheeta arrives home with a migraine and discovers the domestic worker Seema (Amruta Subhash) having sex with her husband in her bed. In a shrill voice, Isheeta tells her friend Sammy (voiced by Sharma) that her “didi” is having sex. The episode, under Sen Sharma’s deft direction, explored female desire, voyeurism, class and camaraderie.
It was the standout segment of the anthology that also featured actors like Neena Gupta and Kajol. “Subhash can step up the wattage in any film, but it’s Shome, with her even and unrushed performance, who grounds it beautifully,” wrote film critic Shilajit Mitra in his review for The Hindu.
I knew she [Shome] was not the stereotypical female protagonist, and I was also getting annoyed how she would constantly get cast as the bai. I wanted her not to be the bai in The Mirror.
– Konkana Sen Sharma
The next chapter
Shome, known for parallel films, arthouse projects, and ‘gritty’ roles, aced commercial cinema just as well. In Hindi Medium, she worked with Irrfan Khan again, playing the role of a snooty consultant, who tutors hassled parents Raj (Khan) and Meeta Batra (Saba Qamar) and their daughter for admission in an elite school in Delhi.
Her performance impressed even Vidya Balan, who called to congratulate her. For Shome, it was a moment of solidarity and acknowledgement from another woman in the business. She also shared the special moment on social media.
“I really enjoyed watching her work over the years. She just seamlessly fits into the world you place her in. She feels real in everything. What I loved about her in The Night Manager was that she was very funny, something she hasn’t done before,” said Balan.
In the Hindi adaptation of the British show The Night Manager, Shome plays an R&AW officer, Lipika Sharma Rao.
Shome’s upcoming projects include a queer love story Mujhe Jaan Na Kaho Meri Jaan, produced by Shweta Tripathi of Mirzapur fame, and the horror-thriller movie, Beyond, with Ali Fazal. She is also part of the web series, Saare Jahan Se Accha, along with Pratik Gandhi, releasing on 13 August on Netflix.
Even as she is busy with multiple projects, Shome’s day includes resistance training and walks.
“Both have become a basic requirement for maintaining sanity in this menopausal phase of my life. As my body is now free of its reproductive duties and can move towards what it was meant to do, this time of transition is challenging, but a much-needed software update,” said Shome.
She is also starting a new innings in her career with the Women in Film scholarship, launched by Oscar-winning producer Guneet Monga. Veteran studio executive and creative producer Rucha Pathak and independent producer Dimpy Agarwal are also recipients of the scholarship.
“An ageist society forces women to vanish once they hit their 40s. The midlife point is where many disappear, fall through the cracks. While learning something new is not easy, I’m looking forward to learning more about the world of production and to putting it to good use,” said Shome.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)