Breaking into the Indian film industry without a godfather or industry connections can be an intimidating experience for outsiders, who often have to find their feet without any guidance or support. In a recent interview with GQ India, actor Sobhita Dhulipala opened up about her own struggles as an outsider and recalled how difficult it was to navigate the industry without anyone to guide her.
She won the Miss India Earth pageant in 2013, hoping it would help her enter runway modelling and eventually films. After several auditions, she landed her first role in Anurag Kashyap ’s Raman Raghav 2.0, which took her to the Cannes Film Festival in 2016. Sobhita made her acting debut with Anurag Kashyap’s Raman Raghav 2.0 in 2016, in which she starred alongside Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Vicky Kaushal. In 2019, she gained wider recognition for playing Tara Khanna in the Amazon Prime Video series Made in Heaven, which ran for two seasons. In 2024, she made her Hollywood debut with Dev Patel’s action thriller Monkey Man, followed by the Hindi film Love, Sitara.
However, she revealed that the win did not work in her favour, as her pageant background was held against her during runway auditions, while being a model became a disadvantage when she auditioned for films. Sobhita moved from Visakhapatnam to Mumbai for college while pursuing modelling. I didn’t have a godfather or a godmother coming to save me. As an outsider, you’re just trying to figure it out; there’s no knowledge or guidance. It’s very intimidating. She added, “I went to so many auditions, and then I got my first part. I went to Cannes, I got to meet a whole bunch of very bright people… You keep learning, and then something cracks. When it happens, you realise anyone can do anything, that this is a circus, and we are all just crazy, excited, creative lunatics. You realise you don’t need anyone’s validation, and that realisation sets you free. But it takes courage, work and time. She subsequently appeared in films such as Chef, Kaalakaandi and the Telugu spy thriller Goodachari. She went on to work across languages, featuring in Malayalam films such as Moothon and Kurup, the Telugu film Major, and Mani Ratnam ‘s Tamil period dramas Ponniyin Selvan: I and Ponniyin Selvan: II. She also appeared in the series Bard of Blood and The Night Manager.
Sobhita then spoke about her experience as an outsider in the film industry and said, “When I was in college, I would look at the covers of magazines like GQ and Vogue, and I thought that couldn’t happen for someone like me, to belong in a sphere like this. Reflecting on how her journey gradually unfolded, Sobhita said she felt fortunate to have landed roles she was proud of and projects that allowed her to tell stories she believed in. There’s so much joy beyond the need to be told that you’re good enough.
