Sobhita Dhulipala on excessive PR culture in Bollywood: I don’t want to be visible 24x7

Sobhita Dhulipala opens up the excessive PR culture in Bollywood, why she doesn't subscribe to it and her return to full-fledged Telugu cinema with Cheekatilo

Sobhita Dhulipala has worked across various languages in her career so far, and recently, the actor marked her return to Telugu cinema with Cheekatilo. While she did the bilingual film Major in 2022, her last proper Telugu release was Goodachari in 2018. Since then, she had worked in various big scales and larger-than-life projects.

Ask her how did it feel coming to the rooted stories of small Telugu films and Sobhita Dhulipala says, “When I signed the project, I didn’t think so deeply. I am deeply connected to Telugu cinema as an audience and as a consumer. But when I started performing, the experience here is so effortless and it is so smooth that you enjoy it. Since I played a podcaster, there’s a lot of crisp vocabulary used, so I felt very relieved that I’m glad I speak this language. It’s my mother tongue and delivering these kind of lines, it’s not easy if you don’t know the language, so I enjoyed it a lot.”

The culture of PR in the film industry has been growing with time. Lately, there have been discussions about how much PR is enough, with many artistes being called out for using excessive PR. For Sobhita, this culture is something she doesn’t identify with much. “Over the past few years, in brief pockets here and there, I’ve worked with a PR form, but I think for my personality or the kind of choices I’m keen on making for the kind of life I want to lead, I’ve decided that I’m not going to require this sort of amplification. I don’t want to be visible 24x7 or I don’t want to be spoken about all the time. That’s not my interest, I don’t find it useful for me,” she says.

The actor adds, “I don’t work with PR, but maybe it works for someone else. There’s no fixed rule with this thing. You can only have your preferences and I think I have clarity about my own.”

But does she feel the use of excessive PR becomes counter productive and takes away from the reality of artistes? “I wish I had the answers for everything because there are so many things we figure along the way. Most of my projects were already counter culture in their own way and I am someone who does not come from the film world or even Mumbai. I came from Vizag and everything I learned on the go. I have arrived at an understanding of what I would like and what I wouldn’t like. What does work and doesn’t work for people, I don’t know. I only know for myself,” she responds.