The Hot List 2016: Tillotama Shome (Actor)

“In my early years in Bombay, I wasted a lot of time feeling like an outsider and marginalised and it got me nowhere,” says actor Tillotama Shome. Photo: Shivaji Sen

Tillotama Shome has no use for labels. The indie/mainstream tags are obsolete, and the actor would rather build bridges between the two pastures than walls. And she has been at it, courtesy her person we-might-know roles, in many of her films such as the National Award-winning biopic Budhia Singh – Born to Run, the political thriller Shanghai or Konkona Sensharma’s upcoming directorial debut A Death In The Gunj. Shome says, “How much of myself am I willing to give to my work, that is the only label, if at all. In my early years in Bombay, I wasted a lot of time feeling like an outsider and marginalised and it got me nowhere. I consider Bombay my home now and work has an instinctive way of finding me.”

The rise to her current enviable spot in meaningful cinema might have been arduous but also worth it. The months ahead are full of exciting projects that include a bunch of films roles, a couple of cameos and a TV show. “I am looking forward to them all and terrified about them all,” says Shome, who returned to the stage earlier this year with Rajat Kapoor’s What Is Done, Is Done, a ”˜clown’ version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.