Doing quality work is of utmost importance to actor Shilpa Shinde, who believes that’s the only way to garner recognition and respect from the audience.
In her over two decade career, Shinde has acted in over 20 projects including TV shows, films, and an OTT series. After more than a decade in showbiz, she shot to fame as Angoori Bhabhi in the 2015 comedy television serial "Bhabiji Ghar Par Hain!".
Emerging as the winner of reality TV show "Bigg Boss 11", hosted by Salman Khan, only added to her popularity.
“For me quality matters, like ‘Bhabiji Ghar Par Hain!’, ‘Bigg Boss’ were quality shows, and you get the benefit of that forever. There are people who do 10 shows but they don’t get that recognition or respect.
"I believe I should do less but best work. Rather than doing more work or being seen everywhere, one should maintain quality work,” Shinde told PTI in an interview here.
Long working hours and lesser remuneration has kept her away from doing daily soaps, she added.
“These days it’s difficult to do daily soaps because they (makers) don’t have budgets (referring to actor's fee), but they want artists to be available 24x7. It is not possible to work beyond 12 hours due to multiple reasons.
"So, how can you work on that budget? They (makers) have good money to spend on creating the sets and everything else that they want to do, they just don’t have money to give to artists,” the 46-year-old actor said.
Up next for Shinde is the 14th season of stunt reality series “Khatron Ke Khiladi”. This is her third reality series after “Bigg Boss 11” (2017) and dance competition show “Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 10” (2022).
The actor said it’s a “coincidence” that she is doing back-to-back non-fiction shows.
“I was not ready for ‘Bigg Boss’ initially, but I won the show. Five years later, I did ‘Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa’, there was excitement to do that show. I’m not a good dancer and I was told, ‘The show is about the journey of becoming a dancer from a non-dancer’. So, I thought, ‘Let’s do this’.
"I was not well while doing the show. It was hectic. Dance is difficult and there were good dancers like Gashmeer (Mahajani), Amruta (Khanvilkar) on the show and dancing in front of them was a big task. ‘Khatron Ke Khiladi’ is a different show, it’s a big show. These three are big shows and I’ve always said, ‘I want to do quality work’,” she added.
According to Shinde, the makers of “Khatron Ke Khiladi” had approached her in the past.
“Everything has a right time. I was not mentally prepared for it (then). You should do what you like. Even when I would say no, they (makers) would still ask me (to do the show)” she said.
The actor described the long-running Colors reality show, currently hosted by director Rohit Shetty, as a “paid holiday” to do adventure stunts.
“I wanted to do the stunts the way it’s done on the show. You don’t get to do these kinds of tasks in real life despite paying money. So, this is something different. Doing all those stunts will be fun.”
The celebrities participating in the upcoming season of "Khatron Ke Khiladi" also include Sumona Chakravarti, Asim Riaz, Krishna Shroff, Shalin Bhanot, Abhishek Kumar, Nimrit Kaur Ahluwalia, Karan Veer Mehra, and Aditi Sharma.
