Laapataa Ladies’ Chhaya Kadam’s Bollywood journey: From earning Rs 250 a day to the Cannes red carpet

2024 is turning out to be Chhaya Kadam’s year. On the big screen, small screen, and international red carpets—the actor is everywhere, and she’s only getting started

While in college, there was a time when actor Chhaya Kadam wanted to play kabaddi professionally. She was good—in fact, great—at it, being a state-level player, even though, not long after, she began nurturing dreams of running her own gym. Acting happened to her “accidentally,” she says, and she doesn’t quite recall when the germ of being an actor was planted in her head. Time has largely been abstract for Kadam, who laughs when she’s asked her age. She never mentions it through the rest of the conversation but does remember being not so young when she took her first step towards the thespian life.

“In 2001, my father and brother both passed away in quick succession. I entered the world of acting much later than most others do; I am not formally trained in it from an NSD [National School of Drama] or FTII [Film and Television Institute of India]. But I remember it was during this time of crisis, when I hadn’t left home for months on end, that I decided to step out one day to attend an acting workshop, whose advertisement I had read in the newspaper,” she says. Kadam partook in the event to force herself out of a rut, to meet new people who did not know about her father and brother’s death, and wouldn’t keep reminding her of them. There was no looking back thereafter.

In May this year, 23 years since that day, Kadam graced the screens at the Festival de Cannes not once, but twice—with Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light that won the Grand Prix award, and Karan Kandhari’s Sister Midnight. Earlier this year, she also appeared in Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies in an impactful role, which garnered rave reviews globally, and continues to trend on Netflix three months since its release on the streaming platform. “It’s a result of everything I did and did not do from the very beginning because I paid my dues,” says Kadam.

Born and raised in the Mumbai suburb of Kalina into a working middle-class family with no connections to the entertainment industry, the actor started out by never saying no to a gig. “I did everything that came my way. In fact, when I was just entering the industry, sometime in 2004, I approached a director for a small role in a project on Doordarshan. I was told that the casting was done so I could work as an assistant on the sets instead. I agreed,” shares Kadam.

The shoot was in Baramati, near Pune where, upon landing, Kadam found out that the actor cast in the role she had applied for had failed to show up. “So they asked me if I will be able to take up the role and I said yes to that as well,” she laughs. It was a “destiny’s child” moment for her. “What’s meant for you will have to come your way,” she quips.

Such moments of big and small victories, however, did not come without their fair share of trepidation. Kadam remembers wondering whether she even “looked like an actress” when the director said no to casting her for the role that ultimately fell into her lap. It’s only now, decades later, that she is finding answers to that long-niggling question.

What does an actor look like?

Actor Sunita Rajwar, who plays Neena Gupta’s character Manju Devi’s arch rival Kranti Devi in the popular Amazon Prime Video series Panchayat, had quit acting for a few years, until the offer for Panchayat—where she plays an “aunt-like” character—came her way. In an for Brut India at the Cannes Film Festival this year, where her film, Sandhya Suri’s Santosh, was screened, Rajwar revealed the reason behind quitting acting: it’s because she was only getting offered maid’s roles. “I was so scared, (I thought) one day, I am going to see my name in the Guinness Book of World Records as the girl who has only played maids’ roles in her whole life,” she confesses to the camera. “When you do small roles, you’re not respected, you’re not paid well, you’re treated like animals, which is so heartbreaking,” the NSD-graduate goes on to say.

Kadam has watched the interview of her colleague, whom she tends to both agree and disagree with. “Even I have done the role of a maid,” she says, “And that’s okay because I needed to do that work at that point. I did some work for the money, while some didn’t have budgets so I did them only for the joy of acting.”

Being a late beginner, in the initial years Kadam would tend to hide her age or reduce it when asked, but eventually, the truth would be out. “Everyone around me was younger than me, knew better English, could sing and dance, and also had contacts, and it would make me think that I had none of that and I am not smart enough,” she muses. Right at the outset, a theatre director had told her that there weren’t enough roles for someone her age, and that she’d either have to be too young, or old enough to play an ajji to get work. “I promised to never work with him, and I didn’t.”

The actor, however, refuses to cut corners when it comes to working on herself. “I started doing parts for 250 rupees a day all those years ago, and had to keep working hard until I reached where I am today where I get paid much much more.” she says. “My roots are in the Konkan region so my Hindi sounds a little different. If I am to be cast in a role where I have to wear a one-piece swimsuit, I can’t speak Hindi like that, or walk around the way I would in a nauvari saree, right? That’s something I have to work on and no one else can for me,” adds Kadam.

Kadam pauses, taking a moment to ponder. “Do you think if Sanjay Leela Bhansali were to make a film on farmers, he’d cast Deepika Padukone as one?,” she says. “Conversely, if a casting director is casting for a character with the last name, say, Raheja, I am not sure they’d cast me. I’m not sure even I’d cast me in a role like that,” she laughs. “I don’t think anyone would think I’d fit right into a role that requires me to strut around in a swimsuit, but if I am to play a character from a chawl that dreams of being in a swimsuit, I’d fit right in. I know it sounds like a really controversial and difficult question, but this is the truth, and it makes you think.”

On the margins and in the centre

Kadam debuted as an actor on stage before she took to the screen in 2009, according to her IMDB page, and has straddled the thespian worlds in Marathi and Hindi with equal ease. The role of Naani, an assertive woman forced to reside on society’s peripheries, in the National Award-winning Marathi film Fandry (2013) by Nagraj Manjule—that dealt with caste oppression and atrocities—left an indelible mark on her. In 2015, once again in Manjule’s National Award-winning film Sairat that dealt with similar themes of caste oppression, Kadam played Suman, a good samaritan from the margins who saves the protagonist couple from being killed because of their inter-caste relationship.

Kadam was later seen in the Marathi film Nude (2017), where she plays the central character of a middle-aged housewife secretly moonlighting as a nude model for art students in Mumbai’s JJ School of Art, and then in Sriram Raghavan’s Andhadhun (2018). In 2022, she was cast in the role of Amitabh Bachchan’s character Vijay Borade’s wife Ranjana in Manjule’s  Jhund, and she credits this milestone to playing the invisible women she has championed on screen without a second thought through her career. “I never thought about playing one character and not playing another, I just followed my heart and played what I wanted to, which is why when a Sanjay Leela Bhansali approached me for the role of Rashmibai in Gangubai Kathiawadi, I looked back and understood how far I must’ve come,” she reflects.

In Laapataa Ladies, Kadam’s character Manju Mai is a feminist icon, running a tea stall at a railway station in a nondescript north Indian town. In All We Imagine as Light, she’s Parvati, a cook at the hospital where the protagonists work. Her pivotal role reveals cracks in the film’s patriarchal universe that is hinged on gender inequities. Both these parts came to her because Rao and Kapadia loved her in films like Fandry and Sairat, and could see her leave a mark, despite her limited screen-time in their films.

“Nothing goes to waste, you know,” says Kadam.

“However, in order to shift the needle, “no” is as important a word as yes, according to Kadam. “Learn to stand up for yourself and say no when you know your worth, because if you don’t, no one else will.”

The actor is excited to see what the future holds for her. She is currently working on a project similar to the film Tumbbad (2018), whose plot was centred around mythical folklores and monsters, with a larger social message on vices and virtues. From never being asked about her career choices, to rediscovering new and old things about her filmography from journalists who’ve done their research for her interviews, Kadam has indeed come a long way. 

“My friend, the other day, pointed out to me that I had worn the same pair of earrings for three consecutive interviews. I didn’t really care about wearing a different earring for every interview because there weren’t as many to give in the past, but look at me now!” she laughs and stifles a sniffle before signing off. Kadam has to rush into another meeting right after, and doesn’t have the time to rest even though she is sick. Or maybe, she doesn’t want to slow down just yet.

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