Young Bollywood star Bhumi Pednekar burst into Bollywood with an incredible performance as an overweight yet supremely confident girl, Sandhya, in Dum Laga Ke Haisha (DLKH). On the seventh anniversary of the landmark cult classic, which also incidentally marks her seven-year journey in cinema, Bhumi credits the Sharat Katariya directorial for giving her the perfect launchpad as an actor in the industry!
Bhumi says, "Dum Laga Ke Haisha was a watershed moment of my career. Looking back, I was truly blessed to have this film as my debut because it is always tough to get a forward-thinking film that projects women in the correct light and DLKH was making bold statements about body positivity! Films like this don’t get made every day and I have to thank Maneesh Sharma, Sharat Katariya, Aditya Chopra and the entire team for trusting me with this beautiful role that has now become an example of how women should be portrayed in cinema."
Bhumi says she always wanted to redefine feminism in cinema through her choice of films and the success of DLKH enabled her to understand that people wanted to see women of substance on screen.
She says, "DLKH was validating for me not just as an actor and a performer but also as a woman who was trying to redefine feminism through her work. I always believed that I became an actor for a purpose - it was to be a part of great cinema and to play great women on screen that aimed at changing the narrative of how a girl is seen by society."
Bhumi adds, "DLKH gave me the confidence to march forward with this ideal that I had in my head and my body of work speaks for it today. It is the most special film of my life and I owe everything to DLKH because it told me that dreams do become destiny."
Bhumi has a mighty slate of films that includes Anubhav Sinha’s Bheed, Ajay Bahl’s The Ladykiller, Shashank Khaitan’s Govinda Naam Mera, Akshay Kumar starrer Raksha Bandhan, Sudhir Mishra’s Afwaa and Gauri Khan produced Bhakshak.
