Sushmita Sen shares her experience on her comeback

Former Miss Universe and phenomenal Bollywood actress Sushmita Sen recently made her OTT debut on with the highly revered and successful Hotstar Specials present Aarya, now streaming on Disney+ Hotstar VIP. In an exclusive conversation with IMDb On the Scene the actress details her journey through the making of Aarya, while also highlighting her comeback after a decade as a “personal win”.

Talking about her return and her long hiatus, Sushmita Sen said, “Aarya is a personal win. It is amazing how much it has taken for me to transcend layers of disappointment and pat my own back and remind myself ‘apna time aayega’.”

Cherishing the success of the show and talking about her character, she shared, “The universe conspired for this show to come my way. The script, ace director Ram Madhvani and his amazing team is a soul connect for me. We think alike on many levels. Aarya is a character with many layers. In season one we haven’t even scratched the surface of the character and we have 5 seasons written. You can’t imagine what’s to come after.”

She further added, “For the first time in my career, and I say this with immense pride and love, when I look at Aarya as a whole, it is very difficult for me to choose one scene. I have too many moments in it that I sit there and I forget it’s me and I say I love this Aarya. She has got so many things that I have and so many things I wish I had. Aarya is not just a performance but a soul.”

When asked what were the things she discovered about herself while making of Aarya, Sushmita Sen revealed, “Every time I went on the set and essayed a character, it was a lot of projection rather than feeling. The kind of commercially inclined projects I did, didn’t really help me grow a whole lot. So I never really discovered Sushmita in a film. These 10 years made me an observer of life. While filming Aarya, I had to no longer portray or project. I had to be. We were not allowed to use glycerin to cry or cut to add any sweat and a feel. Every emotion had to be portrayed then and there and the best way you could reach the emotion was to feel it.”

Sharing an exciting anecdote about the show, Sushmita Sen shared, “ The longest take that we have done at a go was 22 minutes long and it had 8 of the 23 primary actors in the scene. This was the last rites scene that we shot.”