Exclusive: Sonali Bendre talks about her cancer battle, acting comeback & more!

In 2018, a wave of sadness was felt across India, when Bollywood star Sonali Bendre Behl announced that she was diagnosed with cancer. Today she has managed to treat it like a story of the past.

As she sits here with WION, she returns with a lot of energy despite back-to-back interviews and promotions, which were scheduled before this exclusive conversation. Sonali Bendre is making her debut on the OTT platform with her latest venture in 'The Broken News'. Although she worked in numerous films while shooting for 'The Broken News', Bendrefelt like a complete newcomer and arrived with a lot of nervousness. In this conversation, she shares why.

This is not a regular OTT debut, or come back, but rather right now as we sit here and talk, I see this as you fighting cancer, and coming back to work again.

Wow, that's a nice way of looking at it. The point is that I am alive, I am back, and I am back in action, so that's a plus. But yes, it's been a while since I did fiction, or OTT platform pe toh pehli baar aa rahi hoon (rather it's my first time on OTT platform), so it's different, it's exciting, but nervous also. I have to be honest, I am very nervous about it.

What was your life mantra after you managed to beat cancer?

I think my hashtags said it all, #switchonthesunshine, #onedayatatime, and where this is concerned now, I think today only while talking to somebody I said one step at a time, so I think those are the mantras that, simple things are what are the ideal and the best mantras in life because they are doable, and you can continue with them and one thing that 2018 has taught meis that its the simple things that are important.

Don't want to dig past graves, but do you remember the initial reaction when you were first diagnosed with cancer?

It was shocking! The fact that this diagnosis had happened, the fact that I was going through it and all of that, but now as I look back, after all those years of acting in movies, I never thought that I was loved so much. Look, you're an actor, you know you're liked, somebody might like your hair, the way you look, it's the dress, it's some story, it's some actor you've worked with, there are so many factors, but for people to be so concerned, that means they loved ME, and for me that was shocking.

I mean, I didn't realise that I had so much love. It was humbling, and it just also made me feel a bit responsible and I don't know what I'll do about that but I do feel like, every time I feel like..., you know how it's like when I always say that about my parents, my mother especially.

My mother never came on the sets with me, she was always like you know, agar aap kaam pe jaate (if you'd go to work), I wouldn't be sitting on that desk next to you, so just you're going to work and I have a daughter at home and I am busy with that. So, you'll come back. And you know, the thing was that whenever my mother has stopped me from doing something, I have definitely done it. Here, it was that my mother was letting me do things and she was not there to say "stop doing this", "don't do that", and suddenly I felt responsible. I felt like, I needed to, she has shown so much of faith in me and I felt like I needed to live up to it, which was not me as a youngster.

So, I just grew up, you know. So, when you talk to my mother, even today she'll say that I was very naughty, and she used to be frustrated with me, which is very unlike the grown-up me, and that change happened when I started movies because I just grew up. And something similar happened to me with this, because I never expected that there's so much love,like I said that you feel that the love is for these various roles, and these reasons, but this showed me that they loved me. And suddenly it makes me feel responsible, I feel like, I don't want to let people down, I don't want to be affected so much also, but it does affect me because I do feel so humbled and I feel that gratitude, that I want to live up to it, kind of a sort.

You are working with Jaideep Ahlawat and Shriya Pilgaonkar. Two of the people who have become well known for OTT.

They are the veterans and I am the newcomer. (Sonali laughs).

I didn't feel like I was an experienced actor, I felt like a newcomer. Also, because the industry has changed so much, everything has changed so much, you know the technique has changed, cameras are so different, in fact, I was talking to somebody the other day and I said that you know, in our time cameras were these huge things, and you know there was, you knew that the camera was on, they made sounds, you shot on films, which was very expensive, so you rehearsed more and you kind of shot it and so you did as little as you could, wasted as little as you could. You're doing digital cameras, now you can shoot as much as you want, so directors are shooting from every angle, the whole scene is shot from some 5-6 angles, which never happened in our times, and like I said cameras are smaller, and suddenly there are all these gadgets and contraptions they come on.

I mean, you know if a camera moved, it was a crane or a dolly, it was a huge process. Now, suddenly there are these little cameras and they are kind of sneaking up on you, so it just puts you off a bit. It's like...it's a bit different. So, I did not feel like I was experienced, I felt like a newcomer, so the way you act, changes, the way OTT is also, the screenplay is also different from films, it's like a longer film to a certain degree but the way the screenplay is different, the way you're kind of doing, so the technique, the writing, the direction, the way you're acting, the lenses have changed, the make-up and hair has changed, the clothes are different, so, it's so much more real now, and you can't have like a mask on anymore. So, all the things that were for putting on a mask are not that much, so I definitely did not feel like an experienced person. I was very nervous and I did feel like a newcomer on the set. Ya, nervous because there were so many changes.

So back then when cameras were expensive and when you made mistakes, did you get a lot of scolding or something?

No, not scolding but you were definitely aware of how expensive film was, so if you made a mistake, you did feel that stress that was felt from the production, from the direction, `to everybody was like "Oh my god, we are wasting a lot of footage", and you could feel that energy. So, on digital that energy is not there.

But I am used to doing it quicker, so when I have to do it so many times that's a different kind of pattern and challenge, when you do the same thing so many times and then yet to make it feel like you're doing it for the first time. It was a challenge. Nowadays I see you make reels with your co-stars, a different kind of mix and mingling isn't it from what it used to be back then?

Oh, we mixed and mingled very well back then also, I mean they are my friends still today and it's been a lifetime and we are still friends so...
Ya, but there was no social media so probably you guys didn't see the way we were mixing or mingling but you know that was there, we had our own socialising or meeting, we were working so much that it was not like you were constantly but every time we were promoting, or you're working, or you're outdoor, you do end up spending the time.

So you are playing a journalist in your OTT debut.

I'm the editor-in-chief.

What did you like or dislike about our profession?

There's nothing to dislike, I mean, every profession is different from the other so there's nothing to dislike. I don't know if I would say like but I think what I understood, and what was kind of like an eye-opener was I'd say, was what happens behind the headline or the drama in the newsroom or the struggle to get that byline, you know for a journalist how important that is to get that byline, and the struggle that happens till you get that byline and so for Ameena Qureshi, which is my character, she's the editor-in-chief, and I say that everytime you say journalist, is because yes, she is a journalist but she's editor-in-chief because I definitely felt that for her to become the editor-in-chief, she started rookie intern, new reporter, correspondant, deputy editor, I don't know there's so many levels that she has crossed and she has reached editor-in-chief, and we're two women talking, we know that for... in any career for a woman, she needs to work three times as hard as a man, and there's so many glass ceiling, so for Ameena Qureshi to have reached this position, she really had to be made of... and she really had to be as strong as nails, to be able to reach that position and to keep that position.

Do you remember when you decided to be an actress?

I never decided to be an actress. I am an accidental actor. It just happened, I kept getting the roles, so I kept doing them and the money was good, and I was doing it for the money. That's what it was. Yes, what happened is, on the way somewhere I did fall in love with this job but it didn't start off like that.

Just minutes before this interview, I saw you admiring the length of your hair.

Ya, because you know today it's a bit long so it's not been this long for a while and so I was feeling a bit strange. So, you see I was so used to long hair and then suddenly it was no hair, and that was strange and that was different, and look at me now, I am so used to short hair that I am finding the long hair irritating. So, you see how we adapt, that's a human being for you.

You are a beauty icon who proudly shared photos of going bald during cancer.

Ya, it was also because the moment you are scared, you are going to hide and my instinct was to hide and I did not want to hide. So, the moment you step out and the moment you have put it out, the whole world has seen it. Ab kya chupaoge ? (What will you hide now?) So, you know, I do that a lot of times when people say, "Oh, you were so brave" and "You were being such a...", I was not being brave, I was just trying to survive, I was just trying to you know...tackle. I feel the instinct to hide and not meet people and...let me break that. So, it was just to break it, it was just to liberate myself, I was only helping myself.