Anoushka Shankar Talks Acting and India Tour in 2025

Multi-Grammy nominated sitarist-composer Anoushka Shankar recently brought the spotlight back on her past stint in the Indian film industry, adding that she’d be open to becoming an actor once again.

In a round of interviews related to her recent Grammy nominations at the upcoming 2025 edition of Music’s Biggest Night, Shankar – who starred in 2004 movie Dance Like a Man – said she’d like to act in an Indian movie even now, 20 years later. She says, “Acting in a film? You know what, I would really love to do it again because there were some ways in which that was really fun. But I was 20, and I was very shy. I feel a lot more confident now, and it would be a really cool thing to do.”

Adjacent to acting in films, Shankar says she’s always been keen to work on composing music for Indian cinema. “The more I mature as a musician and the more I grow as a person, I feel like scoring is a beautiful extension of my work and I feel that having a few experiences abroad already. I would love to do it here as well. It would be wonderful,” she says. Shankar has previously created music for the limited series A Suitable Boy in 2020, plus the documentary Never Forget Tibet from 2022 which focuses on the Dalai Lama.

The year 2025 marks 30 years of performing for Shankar and across the last 20 years, she’s earned a total of 11 Grammy nominations. Although a Grammy win has so far eluded her – “I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was hoping for a different outcome,” she said previously – she’s happy that her album  Ch II: How Dark it is Before Dawn is up for Best New Age, Ambient or Chant Album. Plus, there’s the Global Music Performance nomination for singing on British artist Jacob Collier’s “A Rock Somewhere” with Bengaluru artist Varijashree Venugopal.

Shankar says in a statement, “It’s been a long journey with the Grammys. I’m particularly happy that my album has been nominated, as I’m really proud of this piece of work.” She points out that it’s the third year that she and her sister, singer-songwriter Norah Jones, have been nominated at the same time. “I was also with her the year she was nominated for five Grammys and won all five [in 2003]; that was also the year of my first nomination. Two years ago, we walked the red carpet together. So, it’s been a long kind of shared journey as a family celebrating each other’s success,” Shankar adds.

The 2025 Grammys are scheduled to take place Feb. 2, 2025, at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles and Shankar and Jones will likely be in attendance. The sitarist is also plotting her U.S. tour in March 2025, followed by an India tour in December 2025. Her follow-up album to Ch II: How Dark it is Before Dawn – tentatively titled Chapter 3 – will be out between February and March, 2025.