Actor Huma Qureshi says she had a dream debut in movies with Anurag Kashyap’s two-part gangster drama Gangs of Wasseypur. In an interview with journalist Barkha Dutt’s Mojo Story, Huma talked about her film debut and the challenges that followed.
She said, “I got my first brush with success pretty early on. Maybe it was just this enthusiasm of getting out of the house and being (an actor) and then Gangs of Wasseypur happened. By 2010 I moved to Mumbai and by 2012 the film was out and it became this big hit in India. My world just exploded. This was a film where they paid me some Rs 75,000, that’s it…I am working with them (Viacom 18) now, they are my producers. But that was my first film and it wasn’t a fancy affair. There were no five-star hotels, cushioning of vanity vans or an army of people (following you). It was like a bunch of people, who went to Varanasi for three months, shot and came back. Nobody had any clue what was happening. So when it came out, I was like, ‘Whoa! I am the lead in the film? My face is on the hoarding?! Should I have gotten paid more for it? Is this how movies get made?'”
Huma Qureshi said Gangs of Wasseypur was a “special experience” and a film that really changed her life because after that, “I was lost”. Huma said she didn’t know “what was happening” when the film released and became a huge hit.
“Because for me coming to Mumbai, meeting people, doing auditions, getting a film happened rather quickly and I didn’t have a game plan after that. I was lost in choice. I was always working, that was never a problem but I was lost in myself. Like finding my own voice, finding myself, who I was, what kind of films I like to do, what I didn’t like to do.
“I was insecure about everything, about myself, how I looked at the work that was happening. Maybe insecure about why am I not doing the films others are doing. I didn’t have anyone to talk to. I had a younger brother in the film business, who was also figuring his way out. There was a shoulder to cry on, but really no one to help you navigate that situation. But I never thought of giving up,” she added.
Huma Qureshi currently stars in the ZEE5 film Tarla, in which she is seen playing the queen of kitchen, the much-loved food writer, chef, cookbook author and host of cooking shows Tarla Dalal.
