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Tuesday, November 5, 2024 |
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A niche Indian actress is thrust into Hollywood's spotlight |
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Sobhita Dhulipala, a star of the new film Monkey Man, in Los Angeles on April 3, 2024. Dhulipala has taken on risky roles in her acting career, outside of Indias blockbuster hits. Now, she plays a key role in the mainstream film in the Hollywood spotlight. (Gabriella Angotti-Jones/The New York Times)
by Anna Kodé and Alisha Haridasani Gupta
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NEW YORK, NY.- Sobhita Dhulipala considers herself an outsider wherever she is.
She grew up in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, making her an outsider in the countrys financial and fashion capital, Mumbai. Her native tongue is Telugu, making her an outsider in predominantly Hindi-speaking Bollywood.
And now, with the release Friday of the high-octane, Jordan Peele-produced Monkey Man, in which she stars alongside Dev Patel, she is again an outsider, thrust into Hollywoods limelight. In fact, the premiere of the film at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, last month was the first time Dhulipala, 31, had ever set foot in the United States.
In India, Im South Indian, Dhulipala, who lives in Mumbai, said in a video interview from her hotel room in Los Angeles. When I come to America, Im Indian.
Its amazing that I get to come to this country with a film, she added. Its like I come with an offering.
That real-life feeling of being an outsider is the undercurrent for many of her onscreen roles. In the Amazon Prime series Made in Heaven, Dhulipalas character is a low-income nobody who schemes her way into upper-class circles. In Monkey Man, she plays Sita, a call girl whose business is the pleasure of powerful but despicable men.
To her, being able to make a career out of playing characters on the margins who defy easy categorization is a point of pride. Those are really beautifully complex humans, she said. To be considered someone who can be trusted with characters like that is really an honor.
Acting was never Dhulipalas career plan. Her family was full of academics, including her mother, who was a teacher, so she figured she would do something similar. I didnt grow up thinking that I would be an artist or some such; it was such an irresponsible thought, she said. Being creative was, like, an indulgent hobby.
She was studying for a masters degree in corporate law in Mumbai when she first dipped her toe in entertainment by taking on a hodgepodge of modeling gigs and TV commercials. In 2013, she entered and won the Miss Earth India pageant. As she started landing more jobs, she dropped out of her masters program and, in 2016, starred in her first Bollywood film, the psychological thriller Raman Raghav 2.0. She then starred in several Tollywood films (Telugu films made in southern India) before being cast in Made in Heaven, which was released in 2019.
But it was before she was seeing any success in India, even before the release of her first film there, that she auditioned for the role of Sita in Monkey Man, she said. It took the team several years to get back to her she had assumed they had moved on and found someone else and when the call finally came, in 2019, Patel told her that he had decided that she would be perfect for the role from the moment he saw her audition.
Dhulipala said she had been drawn to Made in Heaven in part because the show addressed issues including gay rights, colorism and the caste system that werent typically touched on in mainstream Bollywood hits.
If something inspires me or theres some value I can bring to the story, I want to belong with it, she said.
Monkey Man has just the sort of array of lightning rods that attracts Dhulipala: an enclave of combative transgender women, an antiestablishment sex worker and an antipolice plot. Working with Patel on his directorial debut could have been a risky move for a Hollywood unknown, but Dhulipala said the dynamic had felt especially collaborative. Its a different kind of relationship altogether, she said. Theres trust, fear, vulnerability, and you move as one pack, one team.
Theres a certain purity and passion there working with a first-time filmmaker, she added. So I came on board; I jumped on board.
Granted, in this film, she barely has a few dozen lines of dialogue, and her character would not pass even a generous version of the Bechdel test. (Theres something poetic, she claimed, in portraying the moments between the words.)
Her willingness to buck trends spills over into her style choices, too. Early in her career, she recalled being styled by a bunch of people who probably did not get my vibe so much, she said. Because I didnt really have that much of a voice, Id just give in.
But now, she often follows her instincts, leaning into Indian designers and traditional styles. At the Monkey Man premiere last month, she wore a stereoscopic dress designed by Amit Aggarwal, and last year she walked the runway at India Couture Week in a bejeweled silver lehenga.
I figured that I dont have to rely on one persons vision for me or a stylists psyche of what I should look like, she said. I can just try things Im gravitating toward. A lot of times, her interest in an outfit or look is laced with nostalgia. I love a sari because maybe thats my memory of my mother, my teachers in school. Theres a certain grace and dignity, but also sex appeal.
DietSabya, an influential fashion and celebrity-focused Instagram account that has more than 400,000 followers, named Dhulipala as one of its top picks for best dressed of 2023. Her style is a hit with fans, too. A bodycon dress by Sabyasachi that she wore in the second season of Made in Heaven prompted the shows audience to label it Indias equivalent of the revenge dress.
Similarly, in what she said feels like another small act of rebellion, Dhulipala has been embracing her natural curly hair: In India, youre just constantly wanting to look more homogenous. So everyones constantly trying to blow-dry, straighten. Ive been through that journey as well. Now, she added: Im just like, I like my hair, the texture. Hair is history, right? Its part of your identity.
In keeping with her unconventional choices, Dhulipala has her eye on either sci-fi or more action movies. But in the next film, she wants to do more of the action herself, she said. And perhaps a little more talking, too.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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