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Fatima Sana Shaikh: ‘Films have helped me cross an emotional barrier’

Fatima Sana Shaikh reflects on playing Lali in Raat Rani, the role’s emotional resonance, and how dialect and movement shaped her performance.
Opened Runtime3 min Written byDocumentaryTube Team
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In a May 2022 interview with Scroll.in, actor Fatima Sana Shaikh said some films reached her during emotionally vulnerable periods and helped her move through difficult feelings. She described that experience through Lali, the Kashmiri cook she plays in Raat Rani, an episode of Modern Love Mumbai: “Raat Rani is so uplifting that it is cathartic.” Her account is personal testimony, not a claim that acting or films have a therapeutic effect for everyone.

How Raat Rani connected with Shaikh

Udita Jhunjhunwala’s interview, published by Scroll.in on May 18, 2022, focuses on Shaikh’s work as Lali, whose story moves from anguish toward optimism. Shaikh said the script made Lali’s emotional problems and struggles clear. She credited writer Nilesh Maniyar and director Shonali Bose with sharing her instinct for how the character should be performed.

Shaikh said she worked on Lali’s dialect and returned to the script repeatedly to understand how the character’s place and circumstances shaped her behavior. For Shaikh, the performance was not only about the words: “speaking like Lali,” wearing a hijab, and getting onto a bicycle helped Lali’s body language emerge.

Why the bicycle ride mattered

The episode’s bicycle ride beneath Mumbai’s Sea Link serves as a metaphor for Lali’s journey. Shaikh said she enjoyed filming on the city’s streets. She also described the production’s practical work on the sequence: some shots used visual effects, while others were cheated on the Reclamation side.

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The physical performance brought its own challenge. Shaikh said she was a capable cyclist, so she had to portray someone who did not know how to ride. In the interview, she joked, “I can fly on wheels.”

What Shaikh meant by crossing an emotional barrier

Shaikh described periods when a person may feel emotionally unclear and vulnerable. She said films had sometimes come to her at those moments and helped her cross an emotional barrier. She called Raat Rani uplifting and cathartic, and said that watching Lali cross the flyover could make a viewer feel capable, too. She also said Lali empowered her, as had her roles in Dangal, Ludo, and Thar.

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That is Shaikh’s description of what particular roles meant to her. The interview offers a personal account of emotional connection to films; it does not establish a general effect of acting or viewing films on wellbeing.

How Lali differs from Thar’s Chetna

Shaikh discussed Thar’s Chetna as a contrast to Lali. Where the interview describes Lali’s movement toward optimism, Shaikh characterized Chetna in terms of suppression. She said she was initially unsure about taking the part because it was short and offered less written material, but accepted after responding to the script and its world.

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Her comments also point to different routes into a character: for Lali, dialect, clothing, and cycling helped shape the physical performance; with Chetna, Shaikh had less character material on the page to work from. She did not present either role as a measure of which performance was better.

What roles Shaikh says she rejects

Shaikh said she turns down roles when she cannot connect with the character or find a spark. She also said she was no longer measuring her career against other people’s expectations and was exploring work that made her happy.

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What she said she was looking forward to in 2022

At the time of the interview, Shaikh said Sam Bahadur was due to begin shooting in August and that she would play Indira Gandhi. She also described Dhak Dhak, a film about four women traveling by motorcycle from Delhi to Khardung La, in which she said she would ride a Bullet. Those were plans she discussed in May 2022, not a statement of either project’s current status.

The interview identified Amazon Prime Video as the platform for Modern Love Mumbai in 2022. That historical reference does not confirm where the series is available now. Read Udita Jhunjhunwala’s full interview with Fatima Sana Shaikh on Scroll.in.

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